European intelligence agencies carry out massive Internet spying By Peter
Schwarz
6 July 2013
The forced landing of the Bolivian president’s plane in Vienna has exposed
European governments’ protests against massive surveillance by the US
intelligence agency NSA as a sham.
Evo Morales was forced to land in Vienna on Tuesday because several
European countries—including France, Italy, Spain and Portugal—closed their
air space to his aircraft, which was en route from Moscow to La Paz. This
was due to incorrect suspicions that American whistleblower Edward Snowden
was aboard the plane.
The incident was a disgrace, especially for the French President François
Hollande. On Monday, he had criticized the NSA interception measures
undertaken by the United States. “We cannot accept such conduct among
partners and allies. We demand that this cease immediately”, he said.
On Tuesday, he then functioned as a deputy sheriff for the US intelligence
services, endangering the life of the President of Bolivia in order to
deliver up to the United States the man who revealed the scope of NSA
wiretapping.
France subsequently apologized to the Bolivian government. In doing so,
Hollande admitted indirectly that he had taken the decision himself on the
closure and opening up of France’s airspace.
He spoke of “conflicting information about the passengers who were on
board”—suggesting that he had received reports that Snowden was on board.
“As soon as I knew that it was the plane of the Bolivian President, I
immediately granted overflight permission,” he added.
All the other European governments behaved much like the French. Although
the public is indignant about the massive data interception being carried
out by the United States, not one European government is willing to grant
Snowden asylum.
Even the scandalous treatment of the Bolivian president did not lead to a
murmur of protest in the European capitals.
When the CIA used European airspace to kidnap alleged terror suspects in
order to torture them (so-called “extraordinary renditions”), quite
different standards applied. Not a single government made claim to their
sovereignty to close their airspace, although the flights were clearly
illegal.
In Italy, 22 CIA agents and the former head of Italian intelligence Nicolo
Pollari, were sentenced to long prison terms for the kidnapping of an
Egyptian cleric. Some EU countries—such as Poland and Romania—even provided
the CIA with torture facilities.
Behind this attitude is more than simple servility and cowardice towards US
imperialism. What connects the European governments with Washington is
their common class interests.
They are concerned that the US government is spying on their state offices,
diplomatic missions and corporations; and the knowledge gained is then used
to blackmail them. Nevertheless, they work closely with the US secret
services and maintain a similar surveillance apparatus themselves to
monitor their own populations and to suppress social and political
opposition.
The longer the debate over Snowden’s revelations continues, the more comes
to light about what actually happening in Europe.
For example, the daily *Le Monde* revealed on Thursday that the French
foreign intelligence service DGSE (General Directorate of External
Security) “systematically collects the electromagnetic signals from
computers and phones in France, as well as the exchange [of data] between
France and abroad.”
“The whole of our communications system is spied upon,” writes the
newspaper. “The politicians know it, but secrecy is the rule: this French
Big Brother works in secret. It defies all control.”
As in America, it is claimed that the secret services only look at the
metadata, not the content. “The DGSE collects data on the phone calls of
millions of subscribers, emails, SMS, faxes ... and the entire Internet
activity on Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple and Yahoo,” wrote *Le Monde*.
“The set-up is valuable for the fight against terrorism. It also makes it
possible to spy on any person at any time.”
In this way, the DGSE collects billions upon billions of pieces of data
that are stored on three floors in the basement of its offices in Paris.
The secret service’s supercomputers can process dozens of millions of
gigabytes of data.
According to *Le Monde*, the other French intelligence services also have
access to this huge database. Under the cloak of it being “anonymous
information” even the police have access to certain information. The set-up
is totally illegal, since there is no legal basis for the massive storage
of such data by the secret services.
The German foreign intelligence service BND also collects large amounts of
data, as its former CEO Hans-Georg Wieck confirmed in an interview with *
Deutschlandfunk* radio. Wieck said he was not surprise at the extent of
Internet surveillance by British and US intelligence agencies. Such
procedures are “the natural, daily bread of the secret services”—including
the BND.
Share this article:
- Facebook<http://facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsws.org%2Fen%2Farticles%2F2013%2F07%2F06%2Fholl-j06.html&t=European%20intelligence%20agencies%20carry%20out%20massive%20Internet%20spying%20-%20World%20Socialist%20Web%20Site>
- Twitter<http://twitter.com/home?status=European%20intelligence%20agencies%20carry%20out%20massive%20Internet%20spying%20-%20World%20Socialist%20Web%20Site:%20http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsws.org%2Fen%2Farticles%2F2013%2F07%2F06%2Fholl-j06.html>
- Digg<http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&bodytext=&tags=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsws.org%2Fen%2Farticles%2F2013%2F07%2F06%2Fholl-j06.html&title=European%20intelligence%20agencies%20carry%20out%20massive%20Internet%20spying%20-%20World%20Socialist%20Web%20Site>
- Reddit<http://reddit.com/submit?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsws.org%2Fen%2Farticles%2F2013%2F07%2F06%2Fholl-j06.html&title=European%20intelligence%20agencies%20carry%20out%20massive%20Internet%20spying%20-%20World%20Socialist%20Web%20Site>
- Delicious<http://delicious.com/post?v=2&notes=&tags=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsws.org%2Fen%2Farticles%2F2013%2F07%2F06%2Fholl-j06.html&title=European%20intelligence%20agencies%20carry%20out%20massive%20Internet%20spying%20-%20World%20Socialist%20Web%20Site>
- StumbleUpon<http://stumbleupon.com/submit?url=http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/07/06/holl-j06.html&title=European%20intelligence%20agencies%20carry%20out%20massive%20Internet%20spying%20-%20World%20Socialist%20Web%20Site>
- Blogger<http://blogger.com/blog_this.pyra?t&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsws.org%2Fen%2Farticles%2F2013%2F07%2F06%2Fholl-j06.html&n=European%20intelligence%20agencies%20carry%20out%20massive%20Internet%20spying%20-%20World%20Socialist%20Web%20Site>
- E-Mail<http://www.wsws.org/en/special/sendlink.html?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsws.org%2Fen%2Farticles%2F2013%2F07%2F06%2Fholl-j06.html&t=European%20intelligence%20agencies%20carry%20out%20massive%20Internet%20spying>
New Today
- Violent clashes spread in Egypt as US backs army
coup<http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/07/06/egyp-j06.html>
- Obama glorifies militarism on the Fourth of
July<http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/07/06/pers-j06.html>
- Latin American governments blast hijacking in Snowden
manhunt<http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/07/06/unas-j06.html>
- European intelligence agencies carry out massive Internet
spying<http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/07/06/holl-j06.html>
- Demonstrations held against NSA spying, persecution of
Snowden<http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/07/06/four-j06.html>
more articles » <http://www.wsws.org/en/>
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html
To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]
¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤
|
