[Infowarrior] - Key US-EU trade pact under threat after more NSA spying allegations

[Richard Forno]

Key US-EU trade pact under threat after more NSA spying allegations

     Ian Traynor in Brussels, Louise Osborne in Berlin and Jamie Doward	
     guardian.co.uk, Sunday 30 June 2013 08.39 EDT	

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/30/nsa-spying-europe-claims-us-eu-trade

The prospects for a new trade pact between the US and the European Union 
worth hundreds of billions have suffered a severe setback following 
allegations that Washington bugged key EU offices and intercepted 
phonecalls and emails from top officials.

The latest reports of NSA snooping on Europe – and on Germany in 
particular – went well beyond previous revelations of electronic spying 
said to be focused on identifying suspected terrorists, extremists and 
organised criminals.

The German publication Der Spiegel reported that it had seen documents 
and slides from the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden indicating that US 
agencies bugged the offices of the EU in Washington and at the United 
Nations in New York. They are also accused of directing an operation 
from Nato headquarters in Brussels to infiltrate the telephone and email 
networks at the EU's Justus Lipsius building in the Belgian capital, the 
venue for EU summits and home of the European council.

Without citing sources, the magazine reported that more than five years 
ago security officers at the EU had noticed several missed calls 
apparently targeting the remote maintenance system in the building that 
were traced to NSA offices within the Nato compound in Brussels.

The impact of the Der Spiegel allegations may be felt more keenly in 
Germany than in Brussels. The magazine said Germany was the foremost 
target for the US surveillance programmes, categorising Washington's key 
European ally alongside China, Iraq or Saudi Arabia in the intensity of 
the electronic snooping.

Germany's justice minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, called 
for an explanation from the US authorities. "If the media reports are 
true, it is reminiscent of the actions of enemies during the cold war," 
she was quoted as saying in the German newspaper Bild. "It is beyond 
imagination that our friends in the US view Europeans as the enemy."

France later also asked the US authorities for an explanation. France's 
foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, said: "These acts, if confirmed, would 
be completely unacceptable.

"We expect the American authorities to answer the legitimate concerns 
raised by these press revelations as quickly as possible.".

Washington and Brussels are scheduled to open ambitious free trade talks 
next week following years of arduous preparation. Senior officials in 
Brussels are worried that the talks would be overshadowed by the latest 
disclosures of US spying on its closest allies.

"Obviously we will need to see what is the impact on the trade talks," 
said a senior official in Brussels. A second senior official said the 
allegations would cause a furore in the European parliament and could 
then hamper relations with the US.

Robert Madelin, one of Britain's most senior officials in the European 
commission, tweeted that EU trade negotiators always operated on the 
assumption that their communications were listened to.

A spokesman for the European commission said: "We have immediately been 
in contact with the US authorities in Washington and in Brussels and 
have confronted them with the press reports. They have told us they are 
checking on the accuracy of the information released yesterday and will 
come back to us."

There were calls from MEPs for Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the 
European council – who has his office in the building allegedly targeted 
by the US – and José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European 
commission, to urgently appear before the chamber to explain what steps 
they were taking in response to the growing body of evidence of US and 
British electronic surveillance of Europe through the Prism and Tempora 
operations.

Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian prime minister and leader of the 
liberals in the European parliament, said: "This is absolutely 
unacceptable and must be stopped immediately. The American data 
collection mania has achieved another quality by spying on EU officials 
and their meetings. Our trust is at stake."

Luxembourg's foreign minister, Jean Asselborn, told Der Spiegel: "If 
these reports are true, it's disgusting." Asselborn called for 
guarantees from the very highest level of the US government that the 
snooping and spying is immediately halted.

Martin Schulz, the head of the European parliament, said: "I am deeply 
worried and shocked about the allegations of US authorities spying on EU 
offices. If the allegations prove to be true, it would be an extremely 
serious matter which will have a severe impact on EU-US relations.

"On behalf of the European parliament, I demand full clarification and 
require further information speedily from the US authorities with regard 
to these allegations."

There were also calls for John Kerry, the US secretary of state, to make 
a detour to Brussels on his way from his current trip to the Middle 
East, to explain US activities.

"We need to get clarifications and transparency at the highest level," 
said Marietje Schaake, a Dutch liberal MEP. "Kerry should come to 
Brussels on his way back from the Middle East. This is essential for the 
transatlantic alliance. The US can only lead by example, and should 
uphold the freedoms it claims to protect against attacks from the 
outside. Instead we see erosion of freedoms, checks and balances, from 
within."

Within senior circles in Brussels, however, it has long been assumed 
that the Americans were listening to or seeking to monitor EU electronic 
traffic.

"There's a certain schadenfreude here that we're important enough to be 
spied on," said one of the officials. "This was bound to come out one 
day. And I wouldn't be surprised if some of our member states were not 
doing the same to the Americans."

The documents suggesting the clandestine bugging operations were from 
September 2010, Der Spiegel said.

A former senior official in Brussels maintained that EU phone and 
computer systems were almost totally secure but that no system could be 
immune to persistent high-quality penetration operations.

"I have always assumed that anyone with a decent agency was listening, 
hacking if they could be bothered," he said. "It doesn't bother me much. 
Sometimes it's a form of communication."

Der Spiegel quoted the Snowden documents as revealing that the US taps 
half a billion phone calls, emails and text messages in Germany a month. 
"We can attack the signals of most foreign third-class partners, and we 
do it too," Der Spiegel quoted a passage in the NSA document as saying.

On an average day, the NSA monitored about 20m German phone connections 
and 10m internet datasets, rising to 60m phone connections on busy days, 
the report said.

Officials in Brussels said this reflected Germany's weight in the EU and 
probably also entailed elements of industrial and trade espionage. "The 
Americans are more interested in what governments think than the 
European commission. And they make take the view that Germany determines 
European policy," said one of the senior officials.

Jan Philipp Albrecht, a German Green party MEP and a specialist in data 
protection, told the Guardian the revelations were outrageous. "It's not 
about political answers now, but rule of law, fundamental constitutional 
principles and rights of European citizens," he said.

"We now need a debate on surveillance measures as a whole looking at 
underlying technical agreements. I think what we can do as European 
politicians now is to protect the rights of citizens and their rights to 
control their own personal data."

Talking about the NSA's classification of Germany as a "third-class" 
partner, Albrecht said it was not helping to build the trust of Germans 
or other Europeans. "It is destroying trust and to rebuild that, [the 
US] will need to take real action on legislation," he said.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that at least six European member states have 
shared personal communications data with the NSA, according to 
declassified US intelligence reports and EU parliamentary documents.

The documents, seen by the Observer, show that – in addition to the UK – 
Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy have all had 
formal agreements to provide communications data to the US. They state 
that the EU countries have had "second and third party status" under 
decades-old signal intelligence (Sigint) agreements that compel them to 
hand over data which, in later years, experts believe, has come to 
include mobile phone and internet data.

Under the international intelligence agreements, nations are categorised 
by the US according to their trust level. The US is defined as 'first 
party' while the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand enjoy 'second 
party' trusted relationships. Countries such as Germany and France have 
'third party', or less trusted, relationships.

The data-sharing was set out under a 1955 UK-USA agreement that provided 
a legal framework for intelligence-sharing that has continued.

It stipulates: "In accordance with these arrangements, each party will 
continue to make available to the other, continuously, and without 
request, all raw traffic, COMINT (communications intelligence) 
end-product and technical material acquired or produced, and all 
pertinent information concerning its activities, priorities and facilities."

The agreement goes on to explain how it can be extended to incorporate 
similar agreements with third party countries, providing both the UK and 
the US agree.

Under the third party data-sharing agreements each country was given a 
code name. For example, Denmark was known as Dynamo while Germany was 
referred to as Richter. The agreements were of strategic importance to 
the NSA during the cold war.


-- 
Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it.