Today’s award goes to anyone and everyone who thought that the NSA wouldn’t bug foreign leaders at every possible opportunity. (Yes, that includes German Chancellor Angela Merkel.) The same is done by almost every foreign power that thinks it can get away with it. Consider:
- Britain is alleged to have bugged G-20 delegates at a conference several years ago. It also has a track record of bugging foreign embassies.
- Russian schoolchildren presented a replica of the Great Seal of the USA to the American ambassador in Moscow in 1946. It hung on the wall for six years before it was found to have a bug in it.
- A new US Embassy in Moscow was so riddled with bugs by the KGB during its construction that the USA refused to occupy it.
- The NSA bugged Indian embassies in Washington D.C. and at the United Nations.
In the latest brouhaha, it seems Russia gave bugged gifts to delegates at the latest G-20 summit.
Crafty Russian operatives gave goodie bags to world powers at the G-20 summit with USB drives and phone chargers — but they were “Trojan Horses” designed to download info and send it back to the motherland.
. . .
European Union President Herman Van Rompuy became suspicious of the gift-bag devices, which bore the red-and-blue “Russia G20” logo, so he asked technical experts in Belgium and Germany to check them out, according to EU sources.
German intelligence determined the three-pronged mobile-phone chargers could tap into e-mails, text messages and phone calls and, like the USB thumb drives, were a “poisoned gift” from summit host Putin, La Stampa said.
There’s more at the link.
So tell me, why are foreign powers so het-up about the NSA spying on them? Looks like it’s “same old, same old” in the international arena . . .
Now, domestic spying on US citizens – that’s another matter entirely! Jail everyone in the NSA who ordered it or carried it out, as far as I’m concerned. If they have so little regard for the constitution they swore to uphold when they took their oaths of office – the same constitution that, according to the Supreme Court, confers the right of privacy upon individuals – then they should be treated like the traitors they are.
Peter
The fact that the US is listening shouldn't be that surprising (it's still embarrassing). The Germans (and the Spanish, French, etc.) should be embarrassed that they installed the listening apparatus into their own phone infrastructure, and then blindly gave the NSA (and MI-6) unfettered access to it. The Europeans are blissfully spying on themselves for the NSA.
All that is left is Merkel et. al. bowing to kiss Caesar's ring publicly, and all of Europe knows it.
Why is Germany complaining? Because it can. No one is surprised that the spying has taken place, everybody does it (or tries to). Germany (and Spain, and the UK, and France) can raise a fuss because they know full well that the 'American Exceptionalism' argument is dead in the water.
The US can no longer argue that its spying is 'for the greater good' (or for NATO's greater good). And the EU will no longer roll over on it.
We (the US) would raise holy h–l if it was publicly demonstrated that Germany was tapping Obama's phones. Why shouldn't they do the same?