MAJOR International implications to NSA scandal heading our way... Spying on allied governments
Last edited Sun Jun 16, 2013, 05:53 PM - Edit history (1)
Exclusive: phones were monitored and fake internet cafes set up to gather information from allies in London in 2009
Ewen MacAskill, Nick Davies, Nick Hopkins, Julian Borger and James Ball
The Guardian, Sunday 16 June 2013 20.46 BST
Foreign politicians and officials who took part in two G20 summit meetings in London in 2009 had their computers monitored and their phone calls intercepted on the instructions of their British government hosts, according to documents seen by the Guardian. Some delegates were tricked into using internet cafes which had been set up by British intelligence agencies to read their email traffic.
The revelation comes as Britain prepares to host another summit on Monday – for the G8 nations, all of whom attended the 2009 meetings which were the object of the systematic spying. It is likely to lead to some tension among visiting delegates who will want the prime minister to explain whether they were targets in 2009 and whether the exercise is to be repeated this week.
The disclosure raises new questions about the boundaries of surveillance by GCHQ and its American sister organisation, the National Security Agency, whose access to phone records and internet data has been defended as necessary in the fight against terrorism and serious crime. The G20 spying appears to have been organised for the more mundane purpose of securing an advantage in meetings. Named targets include long-standing allies such as South Africa and Turkey.
There have often been rumours of this kind of espionage at international conferences, but it is highly unusual for hard evidence to confirm it and spell out the detail. The evidence is contained in documents – classified as top secret – which were uncovered by the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and seen by the Guardian. They reveal that during G20 meetings in April and September 2009 GCHQ used what one document calls "ground-breaking intelligence capabilities" to intercept the communications of visiting delegations.
This included:
•?Setting up internet cafes where they used an email interception programme and key-logging software to spy on delegates' use of computers;
•?Penetrating the security on delegates' BlackBerrys to monitor their email messages and phone calls;
•?Supplying 45 analysts with a live round-the-clock summary of who was phoning who at the summit;
•?Targeting the Turkish finance minister and possibly 15 others in his party;
•?Receiving reports from an NSA attempt to eavesdrop on the Russian leader, Dmitry Medvedev, as his phone calls passed through satellite links to Moscow.
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MORE at http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jun/16/gchq-intercepted-communications-g20-summits
Hissyspit beat me to LBN. His thread here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014510476
= new reply since forum marked as read
You are tremendously appreciated, Catherina.
K&R
It's give and take. I learn so much from so many good people here that's it's my honor to make some small contributions. Thank you
NSA targeted Dmitry Medvedev at London G20 summit
Leaked documents reveal Russian president was spied on during visit, as questions are raised over use of US base in Britain
Ewen MacAskill, Nick Davies, Nick Hopkins, Julian Borger and James Ball
The Guardian, Sunday 16 June 2013 20.47 BST
US spies intercepted communications of the then Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, during a G20 summit in London. Photograph: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP
American spies based in the UK intercepted the top-secret communications of the then Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, during his visit to Britain for the G20 summit in London, leaked documents reveal.
The details of the intercept were set out in a briefing prepared by the National Security Agency (NSA), America's biggest surveillance and eavesdropping organisation, and shared with high-ranking officials from Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
The document, leaked by the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and seen by the Guardian, shows the agency believed it might have discovered "a change in the way Russian leadership signals have been normally transmitted".
The disclosure underlines the importance of the US spy hub at RAF Menwith Hill in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, where hundreds of NSA analysts are based, working alongside liaison officers from GCHQ.
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The document starts with two pictures of Medvedev smiling for the world's media alongside Brown and Obama in bilateral discussions before the main summit. 
RAF Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire. Photograph: Nigel Roddis/Reuters
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It has often been described as the biggest surveillance and interception facility in the world, and has 33 distinct white "radomes" that house satellite dishes. A US base in all but name, it has British intelligence analysts seconded to work alongside NSA colleagues, though it is unclear how the two agencies obtain and share intelligence – and under whose legal authority they are working under.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/16/nsa-dmitry-medvedev-g20-summit
Does NO ONE think of the sensible woodchucks!?
I hope I don't have to include the 
tag, but you never know these days.
Nadin 
Top-secret document, prepared by GCHQ, contained proposals to target Commonwealth allies at heads of government summit
Ewen MacAskill, Nick Davies, Nick Hopkins, Julian Borger and James Ball
The Guardian, Sunday 16 June 2013 20.47 BST
The Queen and Commonwealth leaders at the heads of government summit in Trinidad. Photograph: Luis Acosta/AFP/Getty Images
UK intelligence agencies planned to spy on delegates to the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in 2009, including being asked to obtain information to give UK ministers an advantage in talks with their Commonwealth counterparts, according to a top-secret document seen by the Guardian.
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The revelation that UK intelligence agencies made plans to target ministers and officials from Commonwealth countries, as well as the targeting of G20 officials disclosed elsewhere, is likely to raise tensions among the Commonwealth nations, who may seek clarity over whether their officials were bugged, and if so to what extent.
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The 2009 Commonwealth meeting, which was also attended by Nicolas Sarkozy, then president of France, appears to have been the first time MI6 – formally known as SIS, or the Secret Intelligence Service – had been asked to gather intelligence from a Commonwealth heads of government gathering.
"SIS have no past history of targeting this meeting," the document notes in an explanation of why operations might be limited in their scope.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/16/uk-intelligence-agencies-spy-commonwealth-delegates
G20 surveillance: why was Turkey targeted?
Gordon Brown had hailed 'strong and strengthening ties' with the country, which was – and is – an ally
The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and finance minister, Mehmet Simsek. Photograph: Adem Altan/AFP/Getty Images
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The subject matter is the everyday talk of financial civil servants and central bankers. The apparent motive for the eavesdropping was to give British officials the slight negotiating edge of knowing what the Turks were thinking about financial reform before they showed their hand.
So why is GCHQ bugging them if the potential gains are so marginal? The answer seems to be because it can, both technically and legally.
In 1994, the Tory government managed to insert into the Intelligence Services Act a clause that allowed electronic surveillance "in the interests of the economic wellbeing of the United Kingdom in relation to the actions or intentions of persons outside the British islands".
The argument at the time was that national security also entailed economic security. The country would want to be prepared for sudden oil price shocks, for example.
But what was created was a capability without a constraint, and a new infinite list of foreign targets to eavesdrop on, no matter how marginal the advantage gained, as the 2009 Turkish GCHQ brief demonstrates.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/16/g20-surveillance-turkey-targeted-gchq
Mind you this dates back to NSA in the year 2000 but put yourself in our allies' shoes, and even our so-called enemies' shoes. I think it's important to consider this to understand some of the ramifications coming our way.
KROFT: Much of what's known about the Echelon program comes not from enemies of the United States, but from its friends. Last year, the European Parliament, which meets here in Strasbourg, France, issued a report listing many of the Echelon's spy stations around the world and detailing their surveillance capabilities. The report says Echelon is not just being used to track spies and terrorists. It claims the United States is using it for corporate and industrial espionage as well, gathering sensitive information on European corporations, then turning it over to American competitors so they can gain an economic advantage.
(Footage of report; plane; report; Raytheon sign; Ford and Kroft)
KROFT: (Voiceover) The European Parliament report alleges that the NSA 'lifted all the faxes and phone calls' between the European aircraft manufacturer Airbus and Saudi Arabian Airlines, and that the information helped two American companies, Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, win a $ 6 billion contract. The report also alleges that the French company Thomson-CSF lost a $ 1.3 billion satellite deal to Raytheon the same way. Glen Ford is the member of the European Parliament who commissioned the report.
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http://cryptome.org/echelon-60min.htm
What makes anyone think they're not (still) doing this? Why are their main targets in China Universities and Research Centers? Why is Germany so spied upon? Intellectual Property Theft. Industrial Espionage. This is all about protecting capital. It's the same reason we're spying on our own citizens now too. We can't have them rising up like Occupy did.
That really changed the world with the stroke of a pen.
It's only a Crime if China does it to us.
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I'm not having a hissy fit over the spying because as McKara pointed out in post 25, this isn't anything new but it's awfully expensive, and what is so wrong with us that we need to spy so extensively on our allies? We've become so paranoid because we don't do the right thing.
And spying with the UK at that, like one of us is a colony of the other! The same people who cooked up phony intelligence for the Iraq war, and now are doing the same for Syria. I don't think our nation can afford $1 trillion a year for this massive security monster.
Just take it as news. I don't think their reaction is going to be as blase about this.
Despite the constant threat of budget cuts, our national security budget for 2013 will reach a staggering $1 trillion.
Recent months have seen a flurry of headlines about cuts (often called "threats"
to the US defense budget. Last week, lawmakers in the House of Representatives even passed a bill that was meant to spare national security spending from future cuts by reducing school-lunch funding and other social programs.
Here, then, is a simple question that, for some curious reason, no one bothers to ask, no less answer: How much are we spending on national security these days? With major wars winding down, has Washington already cut such spending so close to the bone that further reductions would be perilous to our safety?
In fact, with projected cuts added in, the national security budget in fiscal 2013 will be nearly $1 trillion—a staggering enough sum that it's worth taking a walk through the maze of the national security budget to see just where that money's lodged.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/05/national-security-budget-1-trillion-congress
The US and UK are going to have lots of 'splainin to do next week.
UK hoped to find out everything it could about negotiating position of Thabo Mbeki's government
Sunday 16 June 2013 20.47 BST
The then South African president, Thabo Mbeki, on a visit to Britain in 2008. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
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... GCHQ was aiming to find out everything it could about the negotiating position of the government of President Thabo Mbeki, an independently minded swing vote on issues of global economics and finance.
Such intelligence collection was carried out under the title "transnational strategic issues" which embraced energy, economics and the environment.
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The "computer networks exploitation" (CNE) team, responsible for hacking into foreign computer networks, had acquired passwords from a standing operation whose task it was to wheedle them out of target governments and agencies.
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The task was complicated by the fact that the South African foreign ministry had recently upgraded its networks, but the new passwords to the system appear to have been rapidly acquired, and the CNE team set up a series of back doors into the ministry networks "to increase reliability" of the hacking operation.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/16/gchq-south-african-foreign-ministry
