American Spy operations annoy Europe



For years now, especially since the so-called Cold war era, European nations look to USA for their survival and Washington readily made full use of the threat of Soviet ideological expansionism to keep European continent under literally its custody.  NATO terror operations have been a formidable binding force among the western capitalist terrocracies.

So much so, most of European nations always decide polices and plans keeping in view the US interests.

Since capitalism remains the base of their policies, Europeans cannot easily tear themselves away from US domination and control mechanism. They willingly play second fiddle to Washington’s terror muse while CIA conduct spy operations to know all secrets of the European allies so that it can plan in advance its maneuverings. 

As the only super power of the globe, USA now officially controls the world powers.  None can challenge or question America. 

It is obvious that USA has the largest spy network today, collecting complete information about individuals, groups, organizations, nations and world leaders. 

Exposure of US spy networks by Snowden has taken the world by surprise and shock. Privacy of individuals, especially the global leaders, has become a major causality of the nefarious spy operations.  

The US spying scandal broke in early June 2013 when the Guardian newspaper reported that the US National Security Agency (NSA) was collecting the telephone records of tens of millions of Americans. The paper published the secret court order directing telecommunications company Verizon to hand over all its telephone data to the NSA on an "ongoing daily basis".

That report was followed by revelations in both the Washington Post and Guardian that the NSA tapped directly into the servers of nine internet firms including Face book, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo to track online communication in a surveillance program known as Prism.  Britain's electronic eavesdropping agency GCHQ was also accused of gathering information on the online companies via Prism.

Shortly afterwards, the Guardian revealed that ex-CIA systems analyst Edward Snowden was behind the leaks about the US and UK surveillance programs. He has been charged in the US with theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defence information and willful communication of classified communications intelligence.UK spy agency 'taps fibre-optic cables'

The GCHQ scandal widened on 21 June when the Guardian reported that the UK spy agency was tapping fibre-optic cables that carry global communications and sharing vast amounts of data with the NSA, its US counterpart. GCHQ was able to boast a larger collection of data than the US, tapping in to 200 fibre-optic cables to give it the ability to monitor up to 600 million communications every day, according to the report.

The information from internet and phone use was allegedly stored for up to 30 days to be sifted and analyzed. GCHQ and NSA eavesdropping on Italian phone calls and internet traffic was reported by the Italian weekly L'Espresso on 24 October. The revelations were sourced to Edward Snowden. It is alleged that three undersea cables with terminals in Italy were targeted. Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta called the allegations "inconceivable and unacceptable" and said he wanted to establish the truth. USA 'hacks China networks'

After fleeing to Hong Kong, Edward Snowden told the South China Morning Post that the NSA had led more than 61,000 hacking operations worldwide, including many in Hong Kong and mainland China. 

Claims emerged on 29 June that the NSA had also spied on European Union offices in the US and Europe. The US had spied on EU internal computer networks in Washington and at the 27-member bloc's UN office in New York. One document dated September 2010 explicitly named the EU representation at the UN as a "location target". The NSA had also conducted an electronic eavesdropping operation in a building in Brussels, where the EU Council of Ministers and the European Council were located.

The German government summoned the US ambassador on 24 October - a very unusual step - after German media reported that the NSA had eavesdropped on Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone. The allegations dominated an EU summit, with Mrs Merkel demanding a full explanation and warning that trust between allies could be undermined. She discussed the matter by phone with US President Barack Obama. He assured her that her calls were not being monitored now and that it would not happen in future. But the White House did not deny bugging her phone in the past. Past surveillance practices by secret police, whether Nazi or communist have made Germans very sensitive about privacy issues. Incumbent Germany Chancellor Mrs Merkel grew up in the former East Germany, where the Stasi spied on millions of citizens.

France's President Francois Hollande expressed alarm at reports that millions of French calls had been monitored by the USA. The Guardian later reported that the NSA had monitored the phones of 35 world leaders after being given their numbers by another US government official. A total of 38 embassies and missions have been the "targets" of US spying operations, according to a secret file leaked to the Guardian. Countries targeted included France, Italy and Greece, as well as America's non-European allies such as Japan, South Korea and India, the paper reported on 1 July. EU embassies and missions in New York and Washington were also said to be under surveillance.

US allies in Latin America were angered by revelations in Brazil's O Globo newspaper on 10 July that the NSA ran a continent-wide surveillance program. US agents apparently joined forces with Brazilian telecoms firms to snoop on oil and energy firms, foreign visitors to Brazil, and major players in Mexico's drug wars. Mexico, Brazil, Colombia and Chile all demanded answers from the US.

Documents leaked to the Washington Post in mid-August suggested the NSA breaks US privacy laws hundreds of times every year. The papers revealed that US citizens were inadvertently snooped on for reasons including typing mistakes and errors in the system,

Later in August, the Washington Post reported that US spy agencies had a "black budget" for secret operations of almost $53bn in 2013. SMS messages 'collected and stored' In January 2014, the Guardian newspaper and Channel Four News reported that the US had collected and stored almost 200 million text messages per day across the globe. A National Security Agency (NSA) program is said to have extracted and stored data from the SMS messages to gather location information, contacts and financial data.

The documents also revealed that GCHQ had used the NSA database to search for information on people in the UK. The program, Dishfire, analyses SMS messages to extract information including contacts from missed call alerts, location from roaming and travel alerts, financial information from bank alerts and payments and names from electronic business cards. Through the vast database, which was in use at least as late as 2012, the NSA gained information on those who were not specifically targeted or under suspicion, the report says.

Again, Edward Snowden was the source of the incredible pro-humanity report. The file allegedly detailed "an extraordinary range" of spying methods used to intercept messages, including bugs, specialized antennae and wire taps.

The revelations came on the eve of an expected announcement by President Obama of a response to recommendations by a US panel on ways to change US electronic surveillance programs.

European nations now are deadly suspicious of US intentions in perpetual and unethical spying of their leaders. White House has been in touch with foreign leaders to cool down the tempers, but so far without any credible success. Whether the spy episodes  would make a  basic  shift in relations among them remains  to be seen. USA can always use both NATO and World bank and IMF to sustain the hold over the Europeans.

US foreign secretary John Kerry said that activities to protect national security were "not unusual" in international relations. 

 

About the writer:

 

-BY DR. ABDUL RUFF COLACHAL has been an Educationist, Columnist-Commentator  on world affairs Expert on Mideast Affairs Former university Teacher;  Editor:INTERNATIONAL OPINION; FOREIGN POLICY ISSUES; Author of books; website: http://abdulruff.wordpress.com abdulruff@gmail.com.



Comments

There are 0 comments on this post

Leave A Comment