NSA spying

‘Unacceptable’: Merkel calls Obama over suspicion US monitored her cell phone

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called President Obama over the German government's suspicions the US could have tapped her mobile phone. Barack Obama assured Merkel that his country is not monitoring her communications.

RT,

23 October, 2013

Earlier, the German government spokesman said that Berlin had information the US National Security Agency (NSA) could have been spying on Merkel.

“We swiftly sent a request to our American partners asking for an immediate and comprehensive clarification,” Steffen Seibert said in a statement, Reuters cites.

Berlin demanded that American authorities shed light on the scale of its spying on Germany if it took place and thus finally answer the questions that the Federal government asked “several months ago,” Seibert said.

Merkel called Barack Obama over the issue and demanded an explanation. She had made clear to Obama that if the information proved trued it would be “completely unacceptable” and represent a “grave breach of trust,” Seibert said.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said that Obama assured the German leader “the United States is not monitoring the communications of the chancellor.”

Earlier this year, documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the American spy organization intercepted large amounts of data exchanged between German citizens without any legal authorization. The scandalous revelations outraged Germans and sparked widespread demonstrations in the country which is wary of surveillance, largely due to its Stasi past.

While German opposition politicians, the media and activists have been vocal in their anger over the American eavesdropping, Merkel remained restrained in her comments on the matter.

In June, during Obama’s visit to Berlin, Merkel said she was surprised by the scope of the American data collection efforts, but admitted that Germany was “dependent” on cooperation with US agencies. She said that it was thanks to "tips from American sources" that an Islamic terror plot in Germany was foiled in 2007. She added though that it was important to continue the debate about reaching “an equitable balance” between providing security and protecting personal freedoms.

Interior Ministry spokesman Jens Teschke said Wednesday the German government was still in talks with the Americans about the spying issue.

"[But] we have recognized that many of the allegations made by Mr. Snowden can't be substantiated, and on other issues that there was no mass surveillance of innocent citizens,” he said, as quoted by AP agency.

Earlier in July, US fugitive Snowden accused Germany and the US of partnering in spy intelligence operations, revealing that cooperation between the countries is closer than German indignation would indicate. “They are in bed with the Germans, just like with most other Western states,” Der Spiegel magazine quoted the former NSA contractor as saying.

EU parliament votes to suspend US from financial databank to avoid spying

The European Parliament voted Wednesday for US access to the global financial database held by a Belgian company to be suspended because of concerns that the US is snooping on the database for financial gain rather than just to combat terrorism.

RT,

23 October, 2013

The Strasbourg based parliament voted 280 in favor, with 254 against, with 30 abstentions, and called for a suspension of US access until a full enquiry clarifies the situation.

“We need full transparency, especially with all the NSA revelations. Europe cannot accept that the data of private citizens is being accessed without anyone knowing about it", Guy Verhofstadt, the leader of the Liberals in the European Parliament, told Reuters.

EU lawmakers are concerned that the US is covertly using information from the SWIFT database following leaked US documents aired by Brazil’s biggest television network Globo, which indicated that the US has secretly tapped into SWIFT.

Under current agreements the US has limited access to the SWIFT database. The deal is part of transatlantic cooperation following the September 2001 attacks, and allows certain data from SWIFT to be shared with the US treasury.

The idea was that by sharing on a limited basis the millions of financial messages that take place across the world every day, it would help combat terrorism.

However, the parliament’s vote is symbolic, not binding, and rather reflects EU wide public anger at the NSA spying allegations. The European Commission and the various EU governments will still need to approve a suspension of US access to SWIFT.

A few hundred people take part in a protest outside a US National Security Agency (NSA) listening station in Griesheim near Darmstadt, Germany (AFP Photo)

The European Commission has said in a statement that it had no immediate plans to propose a suspension of SWIFT to its member states and that it was “still waiting for additional written assurances” that the US was respecting its prior written agreement with the EU.

For its part the US has denied it is doing anything wrong. According to the EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom, the US Treasury undersecretary for terrorism, David Cohen, has told her that the US government has respected the 2010 agreement on SWIFT.

But there is undoubtedly a firm belief within certain sections of the EU parliament that the EU should be more careful about what it shares with the US.

“The EU cannot continue to remain silent in the face of these ongoing revelations: It gives the impression we are little more than a lapdog of the United States,” said Jan Albrecht, a German Green in the EU parliament.

The vote comes on the back of allegations by the Le Monde newspaper that the NSA has spied on the agency records of millions of phone calls of top French politicians and business people.

The claims were taken seriously by the French government and on Monday morning the US ambassador to France Charles Rivkin was summoned to the French Foreign Ministry to give an explanation.

It was also reported earlier this week that years of spying on Mexico by the NSA had helped Americans get the upper hand in business talks and get investment opportunities that were more favorable to them.

NSA lies? Agency lacks evidence it thwarted 54 terrorist attacks

Is the United States government’s use of broad surveillance authorities as effective of a counterterrorism tool as its advocates make it out to be? A new report suggests remarks made by high power figures to defend the spy powers are largely exaggerated.

RT,

23 October, 2013

Influential members of Congress and the intelligence community alike continue to contend the secretive National Security Agency tactics made public by Edward Snowden earlier this year, with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) — the chairwoman of the Senate’s committee on intelligence — defending those programs as recently as this week in a highly-read USA Today op-ed. As supporters of the NSA initiatives continue to make statements meant to justify those spy programs, however, hard evidence confirming their claims remain absent and should be questioned more thoroughly, a new report suggests.

That report — penned by ProPublica’s Justin Elliott and Theodoric Meyer and published by the independent, investigative journalism site on Wednesday — recalls a number of admissions made by Feinstein’s peers on Capitol Hill and the NSA since Mr. Snowden’s first revelations were printed this past June. And although lawmakers and government officials of all sorts have time and time again told the public that the collection of telephone metadata and Internet surveillance programs disclosed by the former intelligence contractor are necessary tools in the war against terror, ProPublica’s examination of the evidence provided thus far paints a compelling argument that suggests otherwise.

Crucial to the authors’ claim are repeated remarks made by government officials in which it’s implored that the NSA’s tools have thwarted “54 different terrorist-related activities” by relying on authorities provided through Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Section 215 of the Patriot Act or — provisions authorizing the collection of telephone and Internet records, respectively. US President Barack Obama claimed “We know of at least 50 threats that have been averted” because of the NSA’s spy powers only weeks after the first Snowden leak, and, less than a month later, NSA Director Gen. Keith Alexander presented at a Las Vegas security conference and claimed to the crowd that those programs thwarted 54 different attacks. . (AFP Photo)

The “54” figure has since been touted not just by lawmakers, but by the press as well. ProPublica noted that House Intelligence Committee ChairmanRep. Mike Rogers (R-Michigan) has used the statistic to support the programs, and the number has found its way to the pages of the New York Times and other media outlets.

But while most of the NSA’s activities remain classified, Elliot and Meyer have managed to crunch the numbers of what are available, in turn exposing large inaccuracies in the administration’s claim.

Although Gen. Alexander initially said the NSA thwarted 54 different terrorist activities, a declassified chart released by his agency in July revealed that, in actuality,intelligence from the programs on 54 occasions “has contributed to the [US government’s] understanding of terrorism activities and, in many cases, has enabled the disruption of potential terrorist events at home and abroad.”

The chart goes on to show that of those 54 total events, 42 were actually disrupted. Only four of those have actually been identified by the NSA, and ProPublica has provided evidence for each of them suggesting that powers made possible through Sections 712 and 215 may not have been necessary. With regards to one foiled plot, ProPublica cited an AP report indicating that law enforcement relied on neither the Patriot Act or FISA to collect the intelligence needed to make an arrest; in another, British authorities reportedly replied key information — not the NSA.

“The NSA itself has been inconsistent on how many plots it has helped prevent and what role the surveillance programs played,” Elliot and Meyer wrote. “The agency has often made hedged statements that avoid any sweeping assertions about attacks thwarted."

The NSA has yet to offer an official on ProPublica’s findings.