Exclusive: Documents Illuminate Ecuador’s Spying Practices

[ProSense]

Exclusive: Documents Illuminate Ecuador’s Spying Practices

The country where anti-surveillance hero Edward Snowden wants to take refuge spent half a million dollars on an Israeli-made “GSM interceptor” in a deal brokered by a U.S. middleman. Seeking the capacity to “intercept text messages, falsify and modify the text messages” among other tricks.

WASHINGTON — The intelligence agency of Ecuador appears to have sought in recent months to obtain new equipment for a large-scale surveillance, according to confidential government documents obtained by BuzzFeed.

<...>

The Ecuadorian documents — stamped “Secret” — obtained by BuzzFeed appear to show the government purchasing a “GSM Interceptor” system, among other domestic spying tools, and they suggest a commitment to domestic surveillance that rivals the practices by the United States’ National Security Agency that are at the center of a fierce national debate. They include both covert surveillance capacities and the targeting of President Rafael Correa’s enemies on social media. According to the files, SENAIN keeps close tabs on the Facebook and Twitter accounts of journalists, opposition politicians and other individuals, some with few followers.

Ecuador, which has been harboring WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for over a year at its embassy, has been internationally criticized for a recent communications law that is widely seen as a gag order for the media and includes prohibitions on “media lynching.”

Ecuador also has a record of being ahead of the game in domestic surveillance. Last year, it became the first country in the world to implement a nation-wide facial and voice recognition system.

- more -

http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/exclusive-documents-illuminate-ecuadors-spying-practices

Oh, the irony.

The Errors of Edward Snowden and His Global Hypocrisy Tour
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023112872

[Warren Stupidity]

1. I'm sure there is a point there someplace.

By the way:

The Ecuadorian documents — stamped “Secret” — obtained by BuzzFeed appear to show the government purchasing a “GSM Interceptor” system, among other domestic spying tools, and they suggest a commitment to domestic surveillance that rivals the practices by the United States’ National Security Agency that are at the center of a fierce national debate.

Your link.

So when will you be attacking buzzfeed, the author of the buzzfeed article, and the person who gave the author access to these alleged secret documents?

[ProSense]

2. Oh, the

"So when will you be attacking buzzfeed, the author of the buzzfeed article, and the person who gave the author access to these alleged secret documents?"

...point is the dripping irony across all aspects of the story.

Another government official said that while the document is authentic, it was issued without approval from the Foreign Ministry or other officials in the capital and thus has no legal power....Tola told reporters that Snowden's asylum application hadn't been processed because he was not in Ecuador as required by law. She also threatened legal action against whoever had leaked the document. She and other officials offered no further details about his case.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023110603

The Errors of Edward Snowden and His Global Hypocrisy Tour
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023112872

[Warren Stupidity]

3. So the answer is that you have no problem with the leaking of state secrets when

it is aligned with your political agenda. Ok then. Me too.

[ProSense]

4. Apparently, you don't.

"So the answer is that you have no problem with the leaking of state secrets when it is aligned with your political agenda."

I mean, I have a problem with an American leaking state secrets to other countries. I'm sure Ecuador has a problem with one of its citizens leaking its state secrets.

You seem to have no problem with an American leaking state secrets to other countries, almost to the point of cheering those countries.

You appear defensive in the face of the hypocrisy of these countries.

[patrice]

7. So, ONE thing you & I agree about: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

That is, you and I and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

[MineralMan]

5. Every technology-capable nation does something similar.

They can, so they do.

[DevonRex]

6. Quite odd, isn't it, that Snowden wants to go only to countries worse than

the US on hacking and surveillance of their own people and spying on the United States in the cases of China and Russia. I'm actually thinking that there's a new alliance being formed that is of concern. One that rivals a certain situation in the early 1960s in our hemisphere.

Cuba doesn't have the money or natural resources to maintain what's needed. Venezuela does. Ecuador, since defaulting on $billions in debt has been in better shape. But what is their resource? I don't know enough about the country to know how they could support a technological and military buildup.

[patrice]

9. Their resource? Labor, perhaps? Because oppression by any other means would stink just as bad, or

WORSE in the case of the most oppressed and disempowered on Earth.

[patrice]

10. It's on the coast. & I wonder what its relations are like in its region, especially with

land-locked Paraguay, the location of huge Bush family holdings sitting on top of one of the world's last and biggest fresh water aquifers . . .

[DevonRex]

12. Now I get it. Oil 40% of exports. Also Colombia to the north.

Yes, coastal location. Four major rivers feed the Amazon. And do not forget altitude which comes in handy in some forms of collection. And they do collect SIGINT on their own people and others.

[Downwinder]

8. It is OK to leak Ecuadorian documents but not US documents?

[Warren Stupidity]

11. authoritarians are also nationalists.

it is all part of the same mindset.

[geek tragedy]

13. Only Ecuadorians can answer that.

They apparently don't have a 4th amendment in Ecuador.