NSA Lied; Continues To Spy On Foreign Leaders And Congress

Two years ago, Edward Snowden provided evidence that the NSA was spying on its closest “allies”.

In response, Obama has supposedly “banned” US spying on the leaders of its allies and promised that he would reign in the spy agency.

These are his exact words in a speech he made on January 17th 2014:

“Our capabilities help protect not only our nation, but our friends and our allies, as well.  But our efforts will only be effective if ordinary citizens in other countries have confidence that the United States respects their privacy, too. And the leaders of our close friends and allies deserve to know that if I want to know what they think about an issue, I’ll pick up the phone and call them, rather than turning to surveillance. In other words, just as we balance security and privacy at home, our global leadership demands that we balance our security requirements against our need to maintain the trust and cooperation among people and leaders around the world.

The bottom line is that people around the world, regardless of their nationality, should know that the United States is not spying on ordinary people who don’t threaten our national security, and that we take their privacy concerns into account in our policies and procedures. This applies to foreign leaders as well.“

Unfortunately, it seems he wasn’t being completely truthful… unless of course one shrinks the scope of “people who don’t threaten our national security”.

Just three days before he made the speech, Bernie Sanders wrote an email to the NSA chief asking if  the NSA has or is currently spying “on members of Congress or other American elected officials.

The response at the time was that “Nothing NSA does can fairly be characterized as ‘spying on members of Congress or other American elected officials.”

Unfortunately, this statement would also prove to be inaccurate…

According to a Wall Street Journal report, the NSA has kept right on spying on the leaders of its allies– with a focus on Benjamin Netanyahu (to be fair, Israel has been spying on the US as well). Even more disturbing than that bombshell, the NSA was simultaneously spying on members of congress.

The report has revealed that the NSA was targeting the communications of Israeli leaders and officials- ostentatiously to make certain that the Iran nuclear deal wouldn’t face any hiccups.

The surveillance might have also “accidentally” swept up the private conversations that the Israelis had had with US lawmakers.

From the report:

White House officials believed the intercepted information could be valuable to counter Mr. Netanyahu’s campaign. They also recognized that asking for it was politically risky. So, wary of a paper trail stemming from a request, the White House let the NSA decide what to share and what to withhold, officials said. “We didn’t say, ‘Do it,’ ” a senior U.S. official said. “We didn’t say, ‘Don’t do it.’ ”

These revelations have turned even Pete Hoeskstra, who had previously been an ardent supporter of the NSA’s spying on American citizens, against the spy agency. In a tweet he wrote, “NSA and Obama officials need to be investigated and prosecuted if any truth to WSJ reports. NSA loses all credibility. Scary.” 

Politicians “evolving” on their stance when they realize that they are on the receiving end isn’t a new phenomenon: Jane Harman (who had defended Bush’s warrantless spy program as “both legal and necessary,” as well as “essential to U.S. national security” and had even called the whistleblower who revealed the affair “despicable” ) would change her  opinion on the matter when CQ reported that an NSA wiretap had caught Harman “telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department to reduce espionage charges against two officials of American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in exchange for the agent’s agreement to lobby Nancy Pelosi to name Harman chair of the House Intelligence Committee.”

Once again, what’s good for the goose is not good for the gander. Now, hopefully everyone can agree that NSA surveillance on private conversations is terrible for all of us- particularly corrupt officials who can be easily blackmailed. 

Sources: Zero Hedge, Newsweek, The Intercept

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