NSA wiretapped two French finance ministers: Wikileaks

[Little Tich]

Source: Yahoo! News / Reuters

PARIS (Reuters) - The U.S. National Security Agency wiretapped the communications of two successive French finance ministers and collected information on French export contracts, trade and budget talks, according to a report by WikiLeaks.

The transparency website said the ministers targeted were Francois Baroin and Pierre Moscovici, who between them headed the finance ministry from 2011 to 2014.

The allegations, published jointly with newspaper Liberation and online outlet Mediapart, came a week after Wikileaks reported that the NSA had spied on three French presidents from at least 2006 to May 2012, prompting the government to protest to Washington that such behavior between allies was unacceptable.

Wikileaks said that in one document dating from 2002 and renewed in 2012, the NSA asked intelligence services from Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand to collect information on proposed French export contracts worth more than $200 million in sectors including telecoms, electricity, nuclear energy, transport, and health.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/nsa-wiretapped-two-french-finance-ministers-wikileaks-210250702.html

[JDPriestly]

1. Think of it.

It's much cheaper to simply wiretap the communications of your business competitors than it is to educate your people, encourage responsible businesses within your country and feed your population. Just mooch off others. That is going to be viewed as the motto of the American government.

Put yourselves in the shoes of the French. How would you feel?

And don't tell me that all the governments wiretap like that and then express outrage that someone, probably China, stole the personnel files of so many American government employees.

What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

And this was done on Obama's watch. So much for that.

Why did we want this information? Who received it? Did we pass it on to any specific corporations? Was it used by our government? By our State Department? By Commerce?

What was the point?

[PSPS]

2. All good questions

The most galling part of this is that it is within Obama's power to stop this. He could end this malfeasance with the stoke of his pen. The fact that he doesn't says everything I need to know about his true character.

[Nitram]

22. JD, "all governments wiretap like that."

On Obama's watch? LOL. Every government does it. It is standard operating procedure. Just don't get caught.

[Mnpaul]

3. The French are pissed

The Justice Minister states that they are considering giving Snowden and Assange asylum.

French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira thinks National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange might be allowed to settle in France.

If France decides to offer them asylum, she would “absolutely not be surprised,” she told French news channel BFMTV on Thursday (translated from the French). She said it would be a “symbolic gesture.”
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/06/25/french-justice-minister-says-snowden-assange-offered-assylum/

Burn.

[BeanMusical]

8. I hope they'll do it.

[BeanMusical]

4. Kick and R

[jalan48]

5. Taxpayer's paying to help corporations to rule us. Hell of a deal.

[cstanleytech]

6. Just so I am clear, are we supposed to be shocked that the NSA is actually doing its job?

[BeanMusical]

7. Its job is to spy on allies for corporations?

Oh and spy on U.S citizens too.

[cstanleytech]

9. Its job to gather intelligence extends even to allies.

And the information isnt just military its economic, its science, its medical its..............everything because really its all tied together because you need to know what countries capabilities are.
Say just example that you find that an ally has just developed a new targeting system thats better than one you use well then that your going want develop your own version as well defeat that other version which means the people developing and researching equipment are going to need the information you have on it, its common sense.

[JDPriestly]

12. And they wiretapped the electronic communications in the

ministry of the economy, trade, etc. to find out that information?

Not too likely. They surely have easier means to find it out.

Wiretapping real people means finding out about their private as well as their business lives. This kind of snooping is not about defense or real intelligence. It has gone far beyond that. It is intrusion into people's personal lives. It needs to stop.

[cstanleytech]

14. Well ya they could try and just ask them but just because they are an ally

doesnt mean they are going tell the truth or atleast all of the truth nor will probably share all their plans.

[JDPriestly]

15. The Finance Ministers?

They don't manage the weapons industry.

The real question is whether the risk of being caught spying on the finance ministers of a major ally is worth whatever information we might learn from our spying.

It's pretty doubtful. There are other ways of finding out about the manufacturing and technological strides and even sales of products of our allies. And those ways are less insulting.

The French do not like to be treated like our subordinates. In fact, people in other countries don't like being treated like our lackeys.

The NSA's activities are way beyond reasonable. At some point the intelligence we gain is less valuable than the friends we lose.

Whether we are at that point, I cannot say for sure, but it is possible that we may be reaching that point. I know a fair amount about French culture, history, language, literature, and you really don't want to insult the French especially when it comes to their diplomatic culture. It's kind of a self-defeating thing to collect a lot of intelligence that you won't use if it means that you offend an ally that you need. Really stupid. Really stupid.

[Blue_Tires]

10. Assange and his active measures squad were unavailable for comment here:

Russia and China are hacking British companies and spying on their employees
http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-and-china-are-hacking-british-companies-and-spying-on-their-employees-2015-6


Naturally stories like this never get much play on DU unless I post them, that is...

[BeanMusical]

11. Russia and China are allies of the U.K?

[JDPriestly]

16. The questions to ask ourselves when deciding whether to spy on

someone.

Will the intelligence and information we gather from the hacking benefit us enough to outweigh the estrangement, anger, distrust and worse that the realization that we are spying on the subject will cost us?

In the case of our spying on the French Finance minister, I suspect that the intelligence we gain is not worth the risk of offending our ally.

In the case of Russia and China spying on the British companies and their employees, Russia and China probably think that the intelligence is worth the risk of angering the British.

That's the way it works. It is not a game. It is a matter of weighing pros and cons, gains and losses. That's what I think anyway. It is stupid of us to spy on the French Finance Minister because the information we can learn from doing that is not worth the offense to the French. The distrust we demonstrate and cause is too great a cost for the value of the information we may learn.

There is one instance in which I might be wrong. If we suspect the French Finance Minister of some sort of underhanded activities, then the risk might be worth it. But France is a democracy, governed by a Parliament. So the policies of the Finance Ministry should be approved openly for the most part by the Parliament. And we should have means other than wiretapping or placing the Finance Minister under surveillance to find the intelligence we need from France.

This NSA activity is not smart. It is stupid. The NSA has some 'splainin' to do. Because they have offended the French when they probably didn't gain much from doing it.

[JonLP24]

17. I think everyone is used to the US spying on everybody

though they probably don't like it and maybe there will be a stronger push to give Snowden asylum but I agree with you and really feel the US should talk things out like regular people. US is not a country constantly bullied so it really is unnecessary but they have a strong interest in trade secrets.

[Nitram]

23. JD, there is no "estrangement, anger, disturust and worse" between allies.

Last edited Tue Jun 30, 2015, 11:05 AM - Edit history (1)

That's all a show for the people. Otherwise, a nudge is as good as a wink.

[delrem]

13. How can this be stopped?

Everyone except the lowest 5% of witless knows about this problem - has now known about it for years.

The witless send hate-vibes toward "Assange", "Snowden", "wikileaks", etc. and that fits with their witless "I know nothing and I don't want to know anything, because I trust X" world view. But for the rest of us, what can we do?

What can countries do to protect their people, their businesses, their economies? What can individuals do to protect themselves?

Even on the most grassroots level, of the individual entrepreneur who comes up with a plan, how can that entrepreneur protect herself from e.g. Microsoft, which has tendrils all over every bit of communication that entrepreneur is using?
It can't be left up to the US gov't, or to Microsoft and the other big world-spanning conglomerates. Because they'll just lie. There's nothing in it for them not to lie.

[JonLP24]

19. Have to clean house

Don't know how particularly in this current environment but it will take more than electing 1 man as there is too much existent agencies & people. US Embassys have the "Official cover" spies, other agencies like USAID (innocent seemingly agencies like that), contractors, etc have the light cover spies. Plus whatever the Academi private security is involved in (Ashcroft on the board of directors). Need to clean out the corruption somehow.

[bonniebgood]

20. Maybe this could help with no microsoft connection. try this

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photo-old-retro-typewriter-image18796135
http://www.sciway.net/sc-photos/lee-county/elliott-post-office.html

[MattSh]

18. Pfft. Amateurs.

If the NSA was really doing their job, they'd have tapped every single minister.

[Nitram]

27. What makes you think they didn't?

[Nitram]

21. Everybody does it and everybody knows everybody does it.

It's just not cool to get caught. Every country makes a big show of castigating the countries they catch spying on them. All for the home crowd. The respective spy agencies are just winking at each other and getting on with business.

[JDPriestly]

24. So why were we surprised when (we assume) the Chinese or someone

tapped into our database of information on government employees?

I bet those government employees did not feel relieved to hear that "everybody does it."

Maybe we need to build secure computers that nobody can hack?

Maybe some other country will build secure computers that nobody can hack and our computer industry will fail?

Privacy is a fundamental right.

And the security of the American people depends not just on our gathering valuable, I repeat, useful, valuable intelligence (which probably was not found in the computer of the French Finance minister), valuable enough to risk offending the person whose computer is hacked, but also on our respecting the privacy of individuals who work in the governments of our allies.

This hacking of the French Finance Minister's computer was just stupid.

The value of the intelligence should outweigh the insult to privacy and other human values that are felt when the hacking is discovered.

[Nitram]

25. Truth is, sometimes we didn't know they had that capability.

But I assure you, the outrage is completely feigned. If we haven't done it is because we don't yet have the capability.

[JDPriestly]

26. Why the Finance Minister?

For advantages in negotiating trade agreements?

To know which countries or companies the French government wants to deal with or is dealing with?

The book Paris 1919, Six Months That Changed The World describes the negotiations in Paris for the treaty that ended WWI.

When I read it, I was shocked at the ignorance of the negotiators in Paris about the world around them.

Intelligence, that is foreign intelligence, was nearly nonexistent I gather from reading that book.

So, we have now devised a system in which, as a nation, as a government, we try to understand the world, the politics, science, viewpoints, everything that goes on in the world that can make it unsafe. And as a country, we use that knowledge to measure our response to crises that arise in the world.

I must say at this point that I have never worked for any intelligence agency of any country, not to my knowledge at least, and I'm pretty sure that means that I never have. But I appreciate the importance of intelligence work because I have lived in other countries (and not as a wealthy person, just working there) and I realize that sometimes we do not understand people or events in other countries very well.

But I do think that intelligence work requires more than just the ability to find things out. It also requires the ability to assess what is important to find out and what is not as well as the ability to assess when it is best not to try to find something out. This is the case on hacking into the information that the French Finance Minister possesses. Unless there was a very good reason for doing this, it looks really ugly that the US was doing it. We could just ask about French economic policy. Were we looking for a way to influence it? Were we trying to locate some person in the French ministry who would do our bidding? Were we really seeking information about French policy regarding finance? Or was someone just trying to figure out who was having an affair with whom out of some sort of curiosity? And if it was this last possibility, why should the American people pay for that? And if it was one of the prior possibilities, why were we so interested?

There is an appropriate level of intelligence that we need to have. But our intelligence seeking sensors seem to be way out of control.

Intelligence can help us avoid war and conflict, but it can also get us into war and conflict. Sometimes I wonder about the intelligence of the people who run our intelligence agencies. Maybe they aren't as intelligent as they need to be.

I would not favor our having no intelligence agencies either. It is a matter of having an instinct for balance, differentiating between need and morbid curiosity.