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France Bans BlackBerries In Govt. On Fears of Spying
DesertBlade writes "French government officials are no longer allowed to use BlackBerries for official correspondence. The reason? Fear that the US government will snoop out French national secrets via RIM's network. From the article: '"The risks of interception are real. It is economic war," daily Le Monde quoted Alain Juillet, in charge of economic intelligence for the government, as saying. With BlackBerries, there is "a problem with the protection of information," he said. Juillet's office confirmed that he spoke to Le Monde but said he would not talk to other reporters. Officials at the presidential Elysee Palace and the prime minister's office were not immediately available for comment. Le Monde said information sent from BlackBerries goes through servers in the United States and Britain, and that France fears that the U.S. National Security Agency can snoop.'"
I'm sure there will be an avalanche of French jokes (looking forward to some good ones!), but as silly as it may seem, put that in the context of past and present behavior of our executive branch and their reach with the "Intelligence" Community. Entirely plausible, even likely.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
They don't want us to know of any surrenders in advance!
It wasn't through Crackberry messages that the US caught Airbus bribing the Saudis, Belgians and others. Have people already forgotten about Echelon?
The country that is accused of spying on AirFrance aircraft?
http://www.iht.com/articles/1991/09/14/spy_.php/
I thought France was regarded as being very, very good at industrial espionage. Shouldn't we be afraid of them?
There are four boxes used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
I don't think it's unreasonable for a foreign government to suspect that our government is not currently obeying any laws, morals, or ethics where snooping on electronic information is concerned.
Even when laws are obeyed they differ from country to country, and one country might not appreciate the latitude (or lack of it) in the way another country handles information and espionage.
1. name a network that US Spy agencies can't spy on if they wanted to, regardless of national affiliation. why is RIM any different?
2. would a Canadian like to clear their throat and defend a Canadian company accused of complicity with US Spying? seems like France is insulting Canada more than the US here
i think the real culprit here is economic competition. it's not outright economic protectionism, but it's a shrewd effort at spreading FUD to protect the real goal: the nurturing of a Fench homegrown RIM alternative
maybe the French are just pissed that the Internet didn't grow from Minitel
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What could an economic powerhouse like France possibly fear from the US? That they'll find the secret to their outrageous accent?
This seems like a perfectly rational precaution. For five every crazed conspiracy theory where random Joe Public runs around screaming that the NSA is decrypting his SSL'd eBay login information and/or listening for words like "bomb" and "president" on his phone calls to his mother, there's one very legitimate precaution like this.
The real news story would be any government organization, US or foreign, that _WAS_ entrusting valuable national secrets to a third party vendor anywhere. The US isn't the only country with ELINT, and unless you have a network that doesn't require external trust (eg, the encryption is done server side or via a proprietary program that could be compromised) there's every reason NOT to make it easy for someone to profit at your expense.
The minute God crapped out the third cave man, a conspiracy was hatched against one of them. You don't need to be a tin-foil wearing, taxi driving crazypants to know this.
Blackberries can't do S/MIME? Every other email client on the planet can do that. If RIM just built S/MIME support into their products, then it wouldn't matter at all who routed through what and where.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
This is laughable at best. While I understand their very real concern, the US has changed considerably under the dictatorship of their current el presidente, do they not understand how blackberries work?
there is a reason why there is end to end encryption..
You always fear most the evils that you yourself would commit.
Thieves fear theft, liars fear that others are lying, backstabbers fear backstabbing... and the French fear economic espionage. Hmmmm. I wonder what the French might be up to?
The French should know a thing or two about spying. They've been widely reported to engage in corporate spying against U.S. corporate interests. As an American, I say this is fair game (if the U.S. chooses this route).
http://www.iht.com/articles/1991/09/14/spy_.php - an article about this from 1991.
Kinda sad that our own allies are afraid of us spying on them.
That said the US's own citizens might need to take up counter intelligence mindset against it's Government.
As for France's counter intelligence measures it seems to me that the US could pick their communications out of the air with satellites and spy planes, no matter what wireless e-mail they use, just as easily as they could check RIM's servers.
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed H
I recall being told never to trust the shredders in French hotel rooms: they may have a scanner. Can't find that online, though.
Whether you like or hate this administration, there can be little argument that it's caused a great deal of harm to our nations foreign relations.
Do we have any friends left?
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
1. you do not understand how blackberries work.
2. you do not understand how spying works.
But seriously folks.
I'd be willing to bet the NSA could snoop no matter what they use.
This is just France being France, and flipping us off because they're better than everyone else.
Personally, I don't understand how/why these devices can be used by anyone, really, who cares for the privacy/secrets. The connection to your mail-server is not secured at all.
Even if device->RIM connection is secure (which is not certain, for they are using a proprietary protocol, AFAIK), you have to trust your privacy to RIM, a Canadian company foreign to most of its users.
Sure, they have a good incentive to keep your privacy, but it would be better still to just use an end-to-end secure connection directly to your servers (via IMAPS, for example). Devices capable of that are becoming available, and the wireless networks grow as well... RIM exploded in prominence because it did not use Internet Protocol and was able to deliver relatively light and power-efficient devices to do the job.
But technology is quickly eliminating that advantage — and the French may help create a better alternative, for a change.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
You mean that our governments aren't already assuming that they do snoop?
Yeah, but what am I thinking? We're talking about politicians and bureaucrats here.
Deleted
They spend so much time meddling in the corporate world, trying to build national champions that I have no doubt that there is a lot of information of commercial interest floating around.
Mind you, wouldn't surprise me if this is just an excuse to subsidise a French company and have them build a network.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
Given the disastrous track record of the French economy under Socialist policies, one would think the French economic gurus might want to focus more on economic fundamentals and basic Capitalist theory rather than indulge in paranoid conspiracy theories.
...
Of course, then they might be held accountable for their policy failures
"Man is nothing without the works of man" -- Helvetius
I am not surprised. The US Government does not particularly like them either. They are not considered secure devices by anyone's standard. I used to work at a large contractor and whenever some idiot manager had accidentally forwarded their classified emails to their to a blackberry there was always a lot of yelling and head rolling. The person had to basically give up their PDA for a week while the security guys sanitized the device. I believe the emails are actually stored on blackberry's emails servers so they even had to contact them to remove said emails.
If I were worried about security I wouldn't think twice about banning them, no matter what country the mail servers were in. That being said, our govt and I am sure the French govt have skiffs for the really higher classification stuff.
Patrik
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Just your ordinary BOFH
http://killertux.org
This has nothing to do with our present executive, much as I love to blame anything I can on Bush. Our intelligence community has always depended on help from large American corporations. In return for them providing cover for our operatives overseas, we provide them with useful business intelligence.
This was why Australia tried to withdraw from Echelon, and outed the project when we whined. We refused to let them redact sensitive information regarding Australian businesses from the data, and they knew we were using it against them even though we were partners in the project.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
RIM is Candidian. Those STUPID, STUPID frenchies !!
Oh this makes me really happy to see this.
At the moment, it would appear that the US Government has been pushing onto US businesses to allow for this and other types of surveillance and snooping. Now businesses will have a clear example of why it is not in their interests to comply so readily. When the international market will no longer trust you or your business model because the US Federal Government is potentially encroaching, corrupting or otherwise tainting their bsuiness image, then there will be lobbying for less government interference with business.
I don't want to see lobbying affect government at all... don't get me wrong. That's where corruption largely begins and lives. But as long as this system is in place, at least now we can see where even those forces can be used against the current trends in government eroding our rights and privacy.
they have Jacques Clouseau to find out and tell them everything they need to know!
in other news Steve Jobs just announced the latest French Flag theme for the iPhone.
circletimessquare!!!!
shrewd effort at spreading FUD
I'm sorry to inform you that countries spy on each other. Activities categorized under spying include lots of activities that most citizens would find distasteful to say the least.
Instead of the spooks sitting on their ever-expanding rear-ends collecting data, it means they need to keep field agents working France and turning more French politicians and policy wonks.
What you should consider carefully is the implications of this public statement. It tacitly verifies the U.S. Government is collecting that data and getting full cooperation from probably way more than just America telcos.
No one in their right mind wants to re-invent the crackberry.
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Why would the US want to do this? To engage in "economic war" the opponent needs a vibrant economy. Would the US spy on them to try to determine if they're going to loosen up the 35 hour work week?
So make all offical correspondance publically available - the government is supposed to be accountable to the people after all.
Exceptions could of course be made for national security, but for the day-to-day stuff, there's no reason the public shouldn't know.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
i am not getting at that you should trust the americans. i am saying that you should trust neither
"What you should consider carefully is the implications of this public statement. It tacitly verifies the U.S. Government is collecting that data and getting full cooperation from probably way more than just America telcos."
right. because the american government is evil and the french government is good
what a retard
here's a wacky concept: BOTH GOVERNMENTS LIE
fascinating idea isn't it?
a moron blindly trusts what the us government says. another type of moron blindly trusts what the french government says. an intelligent person trusts neither. sorry, you're not in the intelligent camp
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
blackberry == rim == Canadian company?
... or maybe I just have to hang out with less scriptkiddie type people .... hmmm
Bah, bb's [and smart phones] suck anyways. I'm so tired of whenever I catch up with the pals at the bar to have them all pull out their smart phones and show off how cool it is to read email while at the pub.
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I thought RIM was Canadian? http://www.rim.net/
Although I don't doubt that the US government would would snoop on their network too if they could.
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
It's got **nothing** to do with the crackberry client.
At this point in time, I don't doubt that the U.S. spooks measure their computing power in acres so if it's important they'll crack it.
The article indirectly confirms spying at the backbone level via telco cooperation. A probable case can be made that RIM cooperates with the spooks anyway so secure client or not, the French are being practical and staying off a newish and very tempting looking grid.
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There's really only one way.
Build it yourself. Hardware and software. It kind of explains Bull.
Deleted
They just want to get an iPhone and need a reason to expense it.
Half of writing history is hiding the truth.
That BlackBerry is made of a Canadian Company?
Boeing.
Airbus.
Both are MASSIVE exporters, netting their home countries billions - largely because they're the biggest (and, for some products, the only) players in their industry.
Both are at each others throats. Both are trying to best each other. Both are targets of the intelligence service of the opposing country's intelligence community.
The French economy isn't exactly soaring lately, to be sure, but in this particular industry we want to keep a close eye on our competitors. Espionage, like international relations in general, is based on reciprocity - we do what you do to us, and we expect done to us what we'll do to you. Outrage of the uninformed and falsely shocked not withstanding, those are the rules. Sure, we'll try to counter wherever we can and defend ourselves, but it's all part of the game. The French are known to spy on the U.S. Aerospace industry - it would be foolish of us not to do the same to the French industry as well.
Also note that there is a significant difference between espionage and covert action.
I would be paranoid too -but it is a Canadian company (I think though not French Canadian), but couldn't France just use the Enterprise edition, and host it themselves (and monitor it for anything suspicious), or might they fear it being a black box that reports back?
... Can anyone shed light on this, or recommend an as capable/safer SSH client for the BB?
In any event, the Idokorro SSH for BB worries me, when you store your public key, it appears that you are trusting Idokorro with access to your servers
Thanks,
AC
Or even illegal?
If any government were to send official and sensitive communications through unsecured channels known to go through another country, they'd be stupid.
The wonder of it is that it took the French government so damn long to recognize that.
Seriously.
Because the internal workings and deliberations of any government ARE a prime target of espionage even between friendly governments. Think of the advantage one would get from knowing the entire background deliberations of the other side in something as simple as a trade agreement on opening up even a small market.
Now, think how dumb it is to send those communications via an open channel in another country...
Sadly, it seems to me there really is nothing wrong with the idea. Corporate espionage is, I'm sure, alive and well. Honestly, I think they should be more concerned about American COMPANIES digging for information more than our government, but still. Also, the idea of 'listening in' to foreign communications is the heart of espionage. It really doesn't matter what country may be doing it, it's just a part of the landscape.
-- I really need to bleed off some of this
The real surprise is to think that any data exchange at all is safe from prying eyes. Even with encryption , computing is making leaps and bounds at breaking it. Those exchanges are only as safe as the length of time needed to break the encryption.
Hopefully by then the "honey , please pick up some wine on the way home" email will be safe.
Do they think any data sent wireless and through a third party is actually safe ? If so I have one hell of a swatch of land to sell em out there in the middle of the atlantic.
This package Does Not Contain a Winner
This is fair enough, IMHO.
.....
IT Ministries should have the power to examine the Source Code of any computer software, and ban it or alter it if it goes against the interests of National Security. Central and South American governments are waking up to this
Everyone knows that the US government has been spying on other countries for years, including a couple of high-profile industrial espionage cases. If I pulled the strings in France, I would make proper encryption mandatory and not let a single byte escape from government computers/handhelds to the internet.
*reinforces his tinfoil hat with lead*
This sig is intentionally left blank
Existed before this administration, and will exist after it.
Geesh. Your blind hatred makes you look silly.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Please post links to recent articles/papers/talks etc. about BlackBerry security (but not the RIM marketing stuff). I thought of whitepapers, recent security conferences, articles etc. covering the topic.
I am in need of evaluating the security of BlackBerries for my company.
For example, I can remember that on one security conference a few years back I was told that anyone back then could easily push a kernel module on the phone without any user interaction. But I can not find any references that back up this claim nor if it was eventually fixed.
Thanks in advance!
it is just your administration we don't like.. and your software patents.. and your legal sue happy culture.. oh and the hysterical attitude about sex/nudity.
:)
Other than that we love you
Greetings from the EU
it was well known for a long time that france was one of the few hold-outs in terms of letting its CITZENS use pgp encryption tech.
odd that they seem to be doing a 180 and are now CONCERNED (?) with privacy?
I know they now allow pgp encryption for the citizens, but for a long time, hardware vendors that shipped encryption had to 'worry' about how to deal with the french. very bizarre...
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Sorry, but your innuendo falls a little short. It's been pretty visible that the US has mass spy programs against its own citizens (which has long been held less acceptable than against foreign "competition"), and they've done very little to hide the fact that they have a strong interest in collecting and using whatever information they can.
Why do the french have to be up to anything? If I get new deadbolts because I see my neighbour burying bodies in the backyard, it doesn't mean I have any bodies in my yard, it just means I don't want to end fertilizing his...
Greetings Fracnophiles,
RIM's push-email servers are in CANADA. Your precious "Stop for a hunk of cheese, bottle of wine, and loaf of stale bread on the way home from work (at 3pm)" text messages to one another go through a server in ONTARIO. Look it up on a map. I believe on the French version of the map (as required by French law, no less) it's called ONTARIO.
If the NSA or other US govt agency really has been eavesdropping on other governments' blackberry communication, then we have an example of the US govt doing damage to private enterprise (blackberry). And now that the spying has been publicly noted, the US govt isn't going to get any useful information through that channel. Congratulations to US govt for another brilliant foreign policy "success" during this administration.
Birth is the leading cause of death.
You just gave the answer yourself. Do you think the French would trust anything based in Waterloo?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I can see the slogan now... Linux: because you don't have to take our word for it! :)
Seriously, imagine if Windows Update pushed a reconnaissance-program to computers based on IP address before beginning other types of warfare. And conveniently I would imagine it would be difficult to detect the early stages of such an attack as Windows itself would no doubt have configured all the necessary permissions (firewall,...) while not reporting payload-activity. Eventually someone would notice that physical and audited network traffic don't match and then the jig-would-be-up. That's when you begin your land assault!
Shh.
The French were the first to be widely known to commit economic espionage against U.S. firms, I remember. Then IIRC the U.S. decided to get back at them.
In this case the French threw away a nice intel weapon in that they could have coordinated disinformation via their blackberries in an attempt to either disseminate fake information to the U.S. intentionally, or to detect the routes taken by info gleaned from the RIM network much as people make extra email addresses to track spammers.
The problem is, the politicians are only human, and these gadgets are just too darned cute to keep your fingers off 'em.
I wonder why RIM wouldn't be willing to offer the French government their own locally hosted servers.
"At least, the French are not afraid of being tortured by their enemies. I wonder what the CIA might be up to, with its black flights and secret prisons?"
And you don't have to be afraid of intelligent conversation and rational thought.
In all seriousness, WTF is wrong with you, how meaningless and empty is your life that you take a completely unrelated topic and wedge a CIA/torture/black flight rant into it?
Are you so consumed by your paranoia that you are totally incapable of discussing anything without force feeding us your views on a complete non sequitur?
Get a life, you fucking loser.
A friend in university went to France for the summer to work for a French manufacturer. Once there, he was informed that his job was to gain employment at a competitor and steal marketing and product development material. Being a future lawyer, he ignored the ethically problematic aspects of the work, but with due mind for the legal consequences of getting caught, took the job(s), performed admirably, and collected two paycheques all summer.
So when the French are worried about economic espionage, we probably all should be.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
DGSE, the French intelligence services, as part of their official charter engage in industrial and corporate espionage against internal and external targets whether or not those companies are operating in France.
The More You Know.
Blackberries are delicious
There, is this better?
/. frowned on French jokes?
[sarcasm]France is like a tabloid celebrity. Whenever international attention on them seems to wane, they accuse the paparazzi (read: countries that matter) of doing what they'd like them to be doing.
Because, you know, French national secrets are at the top of the US intelligence hit list...[/sarcasm]
And since when has
On Fark this would have to have a Ric Romero reference.
Sadly my government here in Canada is not bright enough to recognise the danger.
Of course the French are concerned with privacy, only for their government agencies. They don't give a shit about their citizen's privacy.
They are just feeling threatened the blackberries are going to hurt the huge grape market in France... They should let all the fruits have a chance and prove themselves by their own merit... Oh wait... not that kind of blackberry...
the us is spying, yes. duh
but that's not true BECAUSE THE FRENCH SAY SO
"What you should consider carefully is the implications of this public statement. It tacitly verifies the U.S. Government is collecting that data and getting full cooperation from probably way more than just America telcos."
yes, the us is spying. why? i can think of many reasons, but the moron i was responding to is saying the us is spying because the french government, that paragon of virtue, says so
(smacks forehead)
there is a particular brand of moron that trusts the us government, we all agree on that
but there is another brand of moron that trusts what the french, chinese, iranian, russian, etc government says, simply because what they say is critical of the usa
wow
this reveals that said morons hate the us govt without reason, that they are willing to trust lies simply because of towards whom the lies are pointed
it is 100% ok to hate the us govt, but you should have a valid reason, not the propaganda of some other assholes with a dubious agenda
a critical mind trusts the mouthpiece of NO government, anywhere. they are all lying assholes
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It appears the UK might be heading in the opposite direction from the French. Sigh. [Insert lame joke about Anglo-French rivalry or similar here] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/20/handhelds_ n_laptops_in_parliament_sez_straw/
At my previous job we worked very closely with a French company, and they set up a program to send one of their employees to work at our site in the USA. A young kid without much experience, everyone wondered why he was chosen. He turned out to be a great guy and became friends with quite a few of us. One drunken evening he let slip that in fact, he was working at our company for the express purpose of reporting back to the French company, all supported by the French government -- he was performing his "national service" by engaging in industrial espionage (rather than, say, joining the army for a year). I found it intriguing. And ultimately, pointless: he didn't learn much from us.
The French know that the right way to collect secret information is to get a government official drunk enough that he will let slip classified information. The US is trying to duck out of the bar tab, and the French government is right to insist that these things are done properly!
Ten years ago, NSA/GCHQ used fax intercepts to catch the french selling weapons components to Iran. (Bamford's conclusion that the turbos were harmless civilian generators is ridiculous.) Iran is heating up again, and I'm sure France would like to sell them munitions; besides making money, it will put sand in the gearbox of the anglo-saxons.
-----
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Resisting the temptaition to make le French jokes and political fun, I'm not getting why they are getting so excited about this.
I'm currently researching a Blackberry deployment for my organization, and it appears to me that the French have completely overlooked the appropriate solution for Blackberries. It appears that they are using the Blackberry Internet Service, which does, in fact, present significant security risks. But Blackberry also offers the Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES), which resides inside the corporate firewall, that creates an encrypted, end-to-end connection to the Blackberry devices it services. At no time is the private data decrypted anywhere except the BES or the handheld. In addition, the BES administrator can enforce policies that prohibit applications from being run, etc. Sure, there are costs involved, but it seems that crippling the way the French government does business would be more expensive in the long run. Am I missing something?
Haiku's are easy
The best can touch you deeply.
Hippopotamus.
Strong encryption for Blackberries.
--- Excellent ---
While you're at it how about encrypting my Iphone too.
sorry, I had to do it
It was "BAe, the British defence company.
This was on CNBC on Monday. If /. is a week behind its not worth posting.
This will all blow over just as soon as France figures out how to surrender in an "economic war."
effect /fkt/
/v. fkt; n. æfkt/
-noun
1. something that is produced by an agency or cause; result; consequence: Exposure to the sun had the effect of toughening his skin.
affect1
-verb (used with object)
1. to act on; produce an effect or change in: Cold weather affected the crops.
OK, So France doesn't want to use Blackberry since they have a centralized model and the spooks can snoop on their email. That's a valid concern.
So some guy is going to get the bright idea: Exchange servers, SSL encryption, and over the air (OTA) syncronization with windows mobile.
Not a bad idea - you maintain the servers and you have an SSL tunnel between your handheld and your front-end server.
That is, until some induhvidual decides to send his top-secret documents to his gmail account.
Email should never be used for security sensitive stuff. SMTP does not use end-to-end encryption.
When are governments going to get it?
-ted
Well, that's interesting. As a European living in the US, my impression is that anti-French feelings don't run so deep in US mentality. They really got momentum after the invasion of Iraq, though. But from what I know of the French, they are more deeply anti-American than people here are anti-French. Not that they hate the US or envy its power, quite the contrary, somehow they consider themselves superior (in terms of education, culture, lifestyle, not invading other countries for no reason, and so on) and kind of despise Americans. Of course, that's a very broad generalization, there are also many French people who like the US (and many even come and live here) but I've found it really hard to find a French person saying "I wish I were American".
Gravitation is a theory, not a fact.
Since most Americans view Canada is either the 51st state or a nice suburb of Detroit, its an American company by default.
apparently my followup post where I clarified I was referring to BES was removed.. with that included, my statement is 100% accurate and you my friend do not understand how blackberries work.. if there is concern about breaking the bes handheld encryption, I don't see how a windows (or any other) mobile device for that matter would fair any better.
Should have went to Brooklyn... I hear they have great nachos!
Kickass Cheap Web Hosting
Blackberries are one of those esamples of disruptive technologies that enter an organisations operations from the top and then work down, rather than from the bottom and work their way up.
Typically what happens is that the executives (people with authority but not necessarily technical ability) get them and start using them. The acquisition and installation of these devices is done as a directive (ie 'You will get Blackberries working for the Executive by such and such a date').
What then follows is the usual IT Infrastructure project, coupled with a Threat/Risk Assessment, along with the development of a security policy to educate the executive and explain how to mitigate any risks.
This lasts until the executives find 'Brick Breaker' and all the other whizz-bang gadgets, at which point they ignore the recommendations of their subordinates and simply do as they please.
Eventually someone does something stupid, an investigation takes place that highlights problems they can't sweep under the carpet or blame on the staff whose recommendations thei either ignored or overrode, and the organisation over-reacts.
I suspect that the French have well thought policies on how to appropriately use Blackberries - that DGSE (or someone else) has determined are not being followed appropriately - and now they are closing the barn door before too many more horses bolt.
It's a story that will probably be repeated elsewhere in the world.
Funny, because the perception in France (full disclosure: I'm french) - regardless of any anti-american feelings - is that the US do spy a lot, with lots of intelligence agencies having focused even more on economic intelligence since the end of the cold war era, forcing us to defend with what we can. (Echelon, for one, is not here to contradict this point of view.)
As much as your quoted article reports mostly on US "defeats", most of the time here we're fed with stories of how we lost (insert obligatory cheese-eating surrending monkeys joke) in this field.
Anyway, I think spying on your foes and friends is as old as humanity, with every party saying "you did it first, I'm only defending" !
Any traffic that goes to Canada must first pass through US soil... MAP: http://news.com.com/2300-1033_3-6035611-1.html