[Infowarrior] - NSA Accessed Mexican President's Email

[Richard Forno]

(Admittedly, this falls under the category of "that's what NSA does." 
--rick)

10/20/2013 11:37 AM
Fresh Leak on US Spying
NSA Accessed Mexican President's Email
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nsa-hacked-email-account-of-mexican-president-a-928817-druck.html

By Jens Glüsing, Laura Poitras, Marcel Rosenbach and Holger Stark

The NSA has been systematically eavesdropping on the Mexican government 
for years. It hacked into the president's public email account and 
gained deep insight into policymaking and the political system. The news 
is likely to hurt ties between the US and Mexico.

The National Security Agency (NSA) has a division for particularly 
difficult missions. Called "Tailored Access Operations" (TAO), this 
department devises special methods for special targets.

That category includes surveillance of neighboring Mexico, and in May 
2010, the division reported its mission accomplished. A report 
classified as "top secret" said: "TAO successfully exploited a key mail 
server in the Mexican Presidencia domain within the Mexican Presidential 
network to gain first-ever access to President Felipe Calderon's public 
email account."

According to the NSA, this email domain was also used by cabinet 
members, and contained "diplomatic, economic and leadership 
communications which continue to provide insight into Mexico's political 
system and internal stability." The president's office, the NSA 
reported, was now "a lucrative source."

This operation, dubbed "Flatliquid," is described in a document leaked 
by whistleblower Edward Snowden, which SPIEGEL has now had the 
opportunity to analyze. The case is likely to cause further strain on 
relations between Mexico and the United States, which have been tense 
since Brazilian television network TV Globo revealed in September that 
the NSA monitored then-presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto and 
others around him in the summer of 2012. Peña Nieto, now Mexico's 
president, summoned the US ambassador in the wake of that news, but 
confined his reaction to demanding an investigation into the matter.

Now, though, the revelation that the NSA has systematically infiltrated 
an entire computer network is likely to trigger deeper controversy, 
especially since the NSA's snooping took place during the term of Peña 
Nieto's predecessor Felipe Calderón, a leader who worked more closely 
with Washington than any other Mexican president before him.

Brazil Also Targeted

Reports of US surveillance operations have caused outrage in Latin 
America in recent months. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff cancelled a 
planned trip to Washington five weeks ago and condemned the NSA's 
espionage in a blistering speech to the United Nations General Assembly.

The US surveillance of politicians in Mexico and Brazil is not a 
one-off. Internal documents show these countries' leaders represent 
important monitoring targets for the NSA, with both Mexico and Brazil 
ranking among the nations high on an April 2013 list that enumerates the 
US' surveillance priorities. That list, classified as "secret," was 
authorized by the White House and "presidentially approved," according 
to internal NSA documents.

The list ranks strategic objectives for all US intelligence services 
using a scale from "1" for high priority to "5" for low priority. In the 
case of Mexico, the US is interested primarily in the drug trade 
(priority level 1) and the country's leadership (level 3). Other areas 
flagged for surveillance include Mexico's economic stability, military 
capabilities, human rights and international trade relations (all ranked 
at level 3), as well as counterespionage (level 4). It's much the same 
with Brazil -- ascertaining the intentions of that country's leadership 
ranks among the stated espionage targets. Brazil's nuclear program is 
high on the list as well.

When Brazilian President Rousseff took office in early 2011, one of her 
goals was to improve relations with Washington, which had cooled under 
her predecessor, the popular former labor leader Luiz Inácio Lula da 
Silva. Lula focused primarily on establishing closer ties with China, 
India and African nations, and even invited Iran's then-President 
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Brazil, in a snub to the US. President Barack 
Obama postponed a planned visit to the capital, Brasília, as a result.

Rousseff, however, has distanced herself from Iran. And the first 
foreign minister to serve under her, Antonio Patriota, who recently 
resigned, was seen as friendly toward the US, maintaining good ties with 
his counterpart Hillary Clinton. Obama made a state visit to Brazil two 
years ago and Rousseff had planned to reciprocate with a visit to 
Washington this October.

Then came the revelation that US authorities didn't stop short of spying 
on the president herself. According to one internal NSA presentation, 
the agency investigated "the communication methods and associated 
selectors of Brazilian President Dilma Rouseff and her key advisers." It 
also said it found potential "high-value targets" among her inner circle.

Economic Motives?

Rousseff believes Washington's reasons for employing such unfriendly 
methods are partly economic, an accusation that the NSA and its 
director, General Keith Alexander, have denied. Yet according to the 
leaked NSA documents, the US also monitored email and telephone 
communications at Petrobras, the oil corporation in which the Brazilian 
government holds a majority stake. Brazil possesses enormous offshore 
oil reserves.

Just how intensively the US spies on its neighbors can be seen in 
another, previously unknown operation in Mexico, dubbed "Whitetamale" by 
the NSA. In August 2009, according to internal documents, the agency 
gained access to the emails of various high-ranking officials in 
Mexico's Public Security Secretariat that combats the drug trade and 
human trafficking. This hacking operation allowed the NSA not only to 
obtain information on several drug cartels, but also to gain access to 
"diplomatic talking-points." In the space of a single year, according to 
the internal documents, this operation produced 260 classified reports 
that allowed US politicians to conduct successful talks on political 
issues and to plan international investments.

The tone of the document that lists the NSA's "tremendous success" in 
monitoring Mexican targets shows how aggressively the US intelligence 
agency monitors its southern neighbor. "These TAO accesses into several 
Mexican government agencies are just the beginning -- we intend to go 
much further against this important target," the document reads. It goes 
on to state that the divisions responsible for this surveillance are 
"poised for future successes."

While these operations were overseen from the NSA's branch in San 
Antonio, Texas, secret listening stations in the US Embassies in Mexico 
City and Brasília also played a key role. The program, known as the 
"Special Collection Service," is conducted in cooperation with the CIA. 
The teams have at their disposal a wide array of methods and high-tech 
equipment that allow them to intercept all forms of electronic 
communication. The NSA conducts its surveillance of telephone 
conversations and text messages transmitted through Mexico's cell phone 
network under the internal code name "Eveningeasel." In Brasília, the 
agency also operates one of its most important operational bases for 
monitoring satellite communications.

This summer, the NSA took its activities to new heights as elections 
took place in Mexico. Despite having access to the presidential computer 
network, the US knew little about Enrique Peña Nieto, designated 
successor to Felipe Calderón.

Spying on Peña Nieto

In his campaign appearances, Peña Nieto would make his way to the podium 
through a sea of supporters, ascending to the stage like a rock star. He 
is married to an actress, and also had the support of several 
influential elder statesmen within his party, the PRI. He promised to 
reform the party and fight pervasive corruption in the country. But 
those familiar with the PRI, which is itself regarded by many as 
corrupt, saw this pledge as little more than a maneuver made for show.

First and foremost, though, Peña Nieto promised voters he would change 
Mexico's strategy in the war on drugs, announcing he would withdraw the 
military from the fight against the drug cartels as soon as possible and 
invest more money in social programs instead. Yet at the same time, he 
assured Washington there would be no U-turn in Mexico's strategy 
regarding the cartels. So what were Peña Nieto's true thoughts at the 
time? What were his advisers telling him?

The NSA's intelligence agents in Texas must have been asking themselves 
such questions when they authorized an unusual type of operation known 
as structural surveillance. For two weeks in the early summer of 2012, 
the NSA unit responsible for monitoring the Mexican government analyzed 
data that included the cell phone communications of Peña Nieto and "nine 
of his close associates," as an internal presentation from June 2012 
shows. Analysts used software to connect this data into a network, shown 
in a graphic that resembles a swarm of bees. The software then filtered 
out Peña Nieto's most relevant contacts and entered them into a databank 
called "DishFire." From then on, these individuals' cell phones were 
singled out for surveillance.

According to the internal documents, this led to the agency intercepting 
85,489 text messages, some sent by Peña Nieto himself and some by his 
associates. This technology "might find a needle in a haystack," the 
analysts noted, adding that it could do so "in a repeatable and 
efficient way."

It seems, though, that the NSA's agents are no longer quite as 
comfortable expressing such pride in their work. Asked for a comment by 
SPIEGEL, the agency replied: "We are not going to comment publicly on 
every specific alleged intelligence activity, and as a matter of policy 
we have made clear that the United States gathers foreign intelligence 
of the type gathered by all nations. As the President said in his speech 
at the UN General Assembly, we've begun to review the way that we gather 
intelligence, so that we properly balance the legitimate security 
concerns of our citizens and allies with the privacy concerns that all 
people share."

Meanwhile, the NSA's spying has already caused considerable political 
damage in the case of Brazil, seriously denting the mutual trust between 
Rousseff and Obama. Brazil now plans to introduce a law that will force 
companies such as Google and Facebook to store their data inside 
Brazil's borders, rather than on servers in the US, making these 
international companies subject to Brazilian data privacy laws. The 
Brazilian government is also developing a new encryption system to 
protect its own data against hacking.

So far, Mexico has reacted more moderately -- although the fact that the 
NSA infiltrated even the presidential computer network wasn't known 
until now. Commenting after TV Globo first revealed the NSA's 
surveillance of text messages, Peña Nieto stated that Obama had promised 
him to investigate the accusations and to punish those responsible, if 
it was found that misdeeds had taken place.

In response to an inquiry from SPIEGEL concerning the latest 
revelations, Mexico's Foreign Ministry replied with an email condemning 
any form of espionage on Mexican citizens, saying such surveillance 
violates international law. "That is all the government has to say on 
the matter," stated a spokesperson for Peña Nieto.

Presumably, that email could be read at the NSA's Texas location at the 
same time.

URL:

 
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nsa-hacked-email-account-of-mexican-president-a-928817.html



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