AZMEX SPECIAL 20 OCT 2013
Note: This and other revelations have really dried up good info from
Mexico. The concern of many is when info is shared or "leaked" to
PRI government. And then to party enforcers or allied criminal
organizations.
Fresh Leak on US Spying: NSA Accessed Mexican President's Email
By Jens Glüsing, Laura Poitras, Marcel Rosenbach and Holger Stark
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nsa-hacked-email-account-of-
mexican-president-a-928817.html
DPA
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.
ANZEIGE
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.
end
No comments:
Post a Comment