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German Intelligence Helped NSA Spy On EU Politicians and Companies
An anonymous reader writes: We've known for some time already that intelligence agencies operate beyond rules, laws, and regulations. Now, we learn that the NSA and the German intelligence service, BND, lied and withheld information about misuse from the German Chancellor's Office.
"The BND realized as early as 2008 that some of the selectors were not permitted according to its internal rules, or covered by a 2002 US-Germany anti-terrorism "Memorandum of Agreement" on intelligence cooperation. And yet it did nothing to check the NSA's requests systematically. It was only in the summer of 2013, after Edward Snowden's revelations of massive NSA and GCHQ surveillance, that the BND finally started an inquiry into all the selectors that had been processed. According to Der Spiegel, investigators found that the BND had provided information on around 2,000 selectors that were clearly against European and German interests. Not only were European businesses such as the giant aerospace and defense company EADS, best-known as the manufacturer of the Airbus planes, targeted, so were European politicians—including German ones.
However, the BND did not inform the German Chancellor's office, which only found out about the misuse of the selector request system in March 2015. Instead, the BND simply asked the NSA to make requests that were fully covered by the anti-terrorism agreement between the two countries. According to Die Zeit, this was because the BND was worried that the NSA might curtail the flow of its own intelligence data to the German secret services if the selector scheme became embroiled in controversy.
"The BND realized as early as 2008 that some of the selectors were not permitted according to its internal rules, or covered by a 2002 US-Germany anti-terrorism "Memorandum of Agreement" on intelligence cooperation. And yet it did nothing to check the NSA's requests systematically. It was only in the summer of 2013, after Edward Snowden's revelations of massive NSA and GCHQ surveillance, that the BND finally started an inquiry into all the selectors that had been processed. According to Der Spiegel, investigators found that the BND had provided information on around 2,000 selectors that were clearly against European and German interests. Not only were European businesses such as the giant aerospace and defense company EADS, best-known as the manufacturer of the Airbus planes, targeted, so were European politicians—including German ones.
However, the BND did not inform the German Chancellor's office, which only found out about the misuse of the selector request system in March 2015. Instead, the BND simply asked the NSA to make requests that were fully covered by the anti-terrorism agreement between the two countries. According to Die Zeit, this was because the BND was worried that the NSA might curtail the flow of its own intelligence data to the German secret services if the selector scheme became embroiled in controversy.
People think the NSA is a government organization. It's not really anymore. It's a captured entity essentially run by private security services contractors. It's in their best economic interest to undermine your freedom so they can make a buck.
They tell congress and the president that there are terrorists everywhere, in every network, and on every phone call. In turn, they get a blank check an zero oversight. No audits. Those that can lie and get away with it always do.
Economic espionage isn't just likely, it's inevitable.
Remember, Snowden was a contractor. Just a flunky hired by a company that had access to sensitive data because of lax oversight.
What if Snowden sold his info to Chinese companies instead of given it to wikileaks? Or American companies? Or Russian ones? We're lucky he did the right thing but you're stupid if you believe someone else already hasn't been using their access to make a buck.
To say NSA lied is not supported by the articles linked in the summary. We have enough to criticize NSA about without exaggerating the facts to fit our desire to believe it is a monolithically monstrous organization whose agents use the U.S. Constitution for toilet paper. And when we go beyond the facts, any legitimate criticism is diluted, because what we say is easily swept aside as a pile of prejudice from conspiracy theorists.
The BND didn't do its job of actually reviewing the selectors. Much like U.S. congressional and judicial oversight both failed to reign in controversial NSA programs. I can't help but wonder sometimes what the Americans at NSA think about all this. Call me heretical, but I bet at least some of them are motivated by a desire to thwart the next 9/11, and want to do so in the right way, too. But intelligence is a contact sport, and laws and executive orders are often ambiguous. So are they like the athletes that have to ratchet up the aggression until the officials start calling penalties before the limits are truly known?