Friday, October 25, 2013

Newspaper Reports The NSA Is Illegally Spying On 35 World Leaders


Barack Obama

This is a follow up to yesterday's article "The NSA Gets President Obama Into International Trouble Over Spying On Other Heads Of State." Initially, it was reported the NSA has been spying on the heads of state of France, Germany and Mexico, respectively.

The Judiciary Report indicated the spying extends much further than the three heads of state, even stating British Prime Minister David Cameron has been a target (they snatch the calls/signal off the satellite). Yesterday's Judiciary Report article also mentioned previous illegal wiretapping by the Obama administration of the Jamaican head of state, which began years ago, as one of my sources informed me in 2010 regarding Former Prime Minister Bruce Golding, "They have him on tape."


U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel

Over an hour after yesterday's article was published to the Judiciary Report and to the site's time stamped blog, the Guardian newspaper in London went public with information stating the Obama Administration via the NSA, has been spying on 35 world leaders via illegal wiretapping (among other things).

This scandal has led to world leaders going to the United Nations regarding the illegal spying, seeking to curb the criminal misconduct. The latest claims have come forth from files associated with brave American whistleblower, Edward Snowden, who is currently domiciled in Russia.

STORY SOURCE

NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders after US official handed over contacts

The Guardian, Thursday 24 October 2013 14.14 EDT - Agency given more than 200 numbers by government official. NSA encourages departments to share their 'Rolodexes.' Surveillance produced 'little intelligence', memo acknowledges.

The NSA memo suggests that such surveillance was not isolated as the agency routinely monitors world leaders. Photograph: Guardian

The National Security Agency monitored the phone conversations of 35 world leaders after being given the numbers by an official in another US government department, according to a classified document provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The confidential memo reveals that the NSA encourages senior officials in its "customer" departments, such the White House, State and the Pentagon, to share their "Rolodexes" so the agency can add the phone numbers of leading foreign politicians to their surveillance systems.

The document notes that one unnamed US official handed over 200 numbers, including those of the 35 world leaders, none of whom is named. These were immediately "tasked" for monitoring by the NSA.

The revelation is set to add to mounting diplomatic tensions between the US and its allies, after the German chancellor Angela Merkel on. Wednesday accused the US of tapping her mobile phone...


Exclusive: Germany, Brazil Turn to U.N. to Restrain American Spies

Thursday, October 24, 2013 - 8:18 PM - Brazil and Germany today joined forces to press for the adoption of a U.N. General Resolution that promotes the right of privacy on the internet, marking the first major international effort to restrain the National Security Agency's intrusions into the online communications of foreigners, according to diplomatic sources familiar with the push.

The effort follows a German claim that the American spy agency may have tapped the private telephone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and dozens of other world leaders. It also comes about one month after Brazilian leader DilmaRousseff denounced NSA espionage against her country as "a breach of international law" in a General Assembly speech and proposed that the U.N. establish legal guidelines to prevent "cyberspace from being used as a weapon of war."

Brazilian and German diplomats met in New York today with a small group of Latin American and European governments to consider a draft resolution that calls for expanding privacy rights contained in the International Covenant Civil and Political Rights to the online world. The draft does not refer to a flurry of American spying revelations that have caused a political uproar around the world, particularly in Brazil and German. But it was clear that the revelation provided the political momentum to trigger today's move to the United Nations. The blowback from the NSA leaks continues to agonize U.S. diplomats and military officials concerned about America's image abroad.

"This is an example of the very worst aspects of the Snowden disclosures," a former defense official with deep experience in NATO, told The Cable, referring to former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. "It will be very difficult for the US to dig out of this, although we will over time. The short term costs in credibility and trust are enormous."...


Report: NSA Spied on 124 Billion Phone Calls in One Month

October 23, 2013 3:10 pm - Tallies of top-secret documents show widespread data collection. The National Security Agency recorded information about more than 124 billion phone calls during a 30-day period earlier this year, including around 3 billion calls from U.S. sources, according to a tally from top-secret documents released by multiple news outlets.

Documents revealing details about the NSA’s Boundless Informant program show that information regarding billions of phone calls and computer communications was collected by the agency from across the world. Boundless Informant "allows users to select a country on a map and view the meta data volume and select details about the collections against that country," according to the Guardian, which first reported on the top secret program earlier this year.

Multiple leaked screenshots of the Boundless Informant program show that information on around 124.8 billion phone calls were collected in just 30-days this year, according to documents released by the Guardian and other news sites. The documents provide a window into the sheer volume of data being collected by the NSA as late as March of this year, according to the Guardian...