.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has compared US spying to Cold War tactics and Brussels wants EU facilities checked for American eavesdropping equipment. Concern is growing the scandal could seriously damage trans-Atlantic relations. Spying row threatens EU-US talks.
Many treaties between the Atlantic Alliance were based on trust as friendly nations, damage done will take a decade or more to recover. Obama’s good-will as President continues to take a beating in Europe, foremost from its citizens, now also from the EU leadership. No wonder Putin has stated Edward Snowden can apply for refugee status in Russia (Breaking News). America is its own worst enemy, just take a look how democracy and the legislature should work (US Congress doesn’t!).
DAR-ES-SALAAM, Tanzania (CBS News) – Responding to reports that the United States has been spying on the European Union, President Obama on Monday suggested that every nation engages in that kind of covert intelligence gathering.
“They’re going to be trying to understand the world better and what’s going on in world capitals… through sources that aren’t available through the New York Times or NBC News,” Mr. Obama said during a press conference in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where he stopped on the last leg of his seven-day trip to Africa.
“I guarantee you there are people in European capitals who are interested in not only what I had for breakfast in the morning, but what my talking points might be should I end up meeting with their leaders,” he said.
Mr. Obama stressed that European nations remain “some of the closest allies that we have in the world” and that he maintains close, constructive relationships with European leaders.
“I’m the end user of this kind of intelligence. And if I want to know what Chancellor Merkel is thinking, I will call Chancellor Merkel.”
John Kerry says E.U. leaders voicing worries about alleged U.S. spying
(CBS News) Leaders in Europe say they are “deeply worried” by reports the United States spied on the European Union. The allegations are the latest reported from leaks by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
Details of the allegations have been trickling out for the past 48 hours in Britain and Europe, and CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer says the political reaction has ranged from astonishment to fury.
European leaders gathering over the weekend to mark Croatia’s entry into the European Union were blindsided by the new allegations. The reports say a European Union office in Washington was bugged, so official conversations and emails could have been monitored by American intelligence.
“Is this the basis for a constructive relationship on the basis of mutual trust, I think no,” said Martin Schulz, current president of the European Parliament.
Secretary of State John Kerry, on an official visit to Brunei, said Monday the Europeans had raised the matter with him, but he wouldn’t comment until he knew the whole truth, but added that, “every country in the world that is engaged in international affairs of national security undertakes lots of activities to protect its national security.”
EU leaders voice their anger at the alleged espionage
(France24) – In the strongest reaction yet to allegations of US eavesdropping on EU diplomats, French President François Hollande on Monday demanded an immediate halt to the surveillance and issued a veiled threat that the “unacceptable” spying could jeopardise US-EU free trade talks.
“We cannot accept this kind of behaviour between partners and allies,” Hollande told journalists during a visit to the western French city of Lorient on Monday.
“We ask that this immediately stop,” Hollande added. “There can be no negotiations or transactions in all areas until we have obtained these guarantees, for France but also for all of the European Union.”
Hollande’s rebuke came a day after German weekly magazine Der Spiegel published a report alleging that the NSA (National Security Agency) bugged EU offices and computer networks.
‘No Longer in the Cold War’: Angela Merkel Infuriated by US Spying
(Der Spiegel) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel has compared US spying to Cold War tactics and Brussels wants EU facilities checked for American eavesdropping equipment. Concern is growing the scandal could seriously damage trans-Atlantic relations.
The German government reacted strongly on Monday to media reports that the United States has spent years spying on the European Union and on specific European countries. Meanwhile, European Union leaders have both reviled the US for allegedly bugging EU diplomatic missions in Washington, DC, and New York and ordered that bloc facilities be searched for American eavesdropping equipment.
“The monitoring of friends — this is unacceptable. It can’t be tolerated,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday through her spokesman Steffen Seibert. “We are no longer in the Cold War.” Seibert said that Merkel had already communicated her displeasure to the US. “Trust has to be the basis of our cooperation,” Seibert said. “When it comes to this affair, trust has to be re-established.”
In addition, Germany’s Foreign Ministry is performing a check on the security of its communications with embassies abroad while the Interior Ministry in Berlin is undertaking an examination of the safety of communication channels used by the German government.
Europe Reacts to NSA Spying (bottom of article)
European Commission VP Neelie Kroes: Spying ‘not acceptable at all’
(BBC News) – The vice-president of the European Commission, Neelie Kroes, has said that it is a “shock” that US intelligence services have potentially been spying on EU offices.
Responding to the allegations, Ms Kroes said that spying was “not acceptable at all… but we shouldn’t be that much surprised”. She added that “it should never, ever happen again”.
.
We would call this request on its merits, Edward Snowden defects to Russia, our foe. VP Biden has added just sufficient pressure on Ecuador that it’s president Correo has decided to back down on granting asylum. LMAO on Putin’s charitable statement, US and Snowden in a heap of trouble. Time for ES to watch the skies for that monotonous sound …
In the cold war era, who were the most prominent defectors? I do recall a former US Marine Lee Harvey Oswald …
Navy Museum Cold War Gallery
LOL, at least Putin is getting some good one-liners out of this. I particularly liked his “shearing a piglet” comment recently.
Seriously, though, it seems ironic that public opinion outside of the US is putting more pressure on the administration than the messenger slandering or ‘meh’ responses of the domestic media, elected representatives and even the progressive blogosphere. Painful to accept, to be sure, but denial of reality is a stage of grief for the Fourth Amendment for which the only end point is acceptance.
Think of NSA/Google as the ultimate intelligence gathering partner of Bank of America or Goldman Sachs and you are getting a pretty good caricature of the future which is actually unfolding for all of us. Your pay for your part-time, white collar employment will come as a prepaid card from Bank of America while your title is lost in MERS and your 401(k) is pilfered by insider trading. Nice.
.
The noise recently about the Chinese stealing US trade secrets in their cyber-campaigns over recent years it is hard to imagine that the privacy issues relating to NSA snooping and US cyber-activity do not extend to commercial objectives of various private sector partners; especially where private contractor companies, such as Booz Allen Hamilton, provide a revolving-door sinecure for government agency and financial sector management.
We see the tip of the iceberg from time-to-time such as in the HBGary hack in 2010, which provided evidence of a specific campaign to discredit Greenwald, for example. Or in things like the drafting process for the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement currently underway:
No prizes for guessing that the same firms in the Prism slide are among the six-hundred, don’t you imagine? As Bruce Schneier recently noted:
He was talking about our willingness to use increasingly “locked down” endpoints to access our increasingly cloud-based personal data but I think his definition of feudalism and the neofuedalism that the occupy movement insinuates are converging; rapidly.
That among the terms and conditions of a local Australian credit union I came upon the following bullet point, under “counter-terrorism financing:”
Can you imagine anyone assuming immediately that the “other country” was not the USA? The reputation being created is not one which will serve America or its citizens well in years to come. The US has already spent the international capital of goodwill it accumulated in the past and is asking for credit in an increasingly sceptical world.
.
The least dishonest answer James Clapper could give, just a little git of perjury. Is that a crime in the US? Will Obama keep him in his Job? Perhaps a good moment to retire to Dubai, UAE? Who’s a traitor to America’s national interest?
Egypt, Syria and parts of the world are on fire, can we locate Barack Obama .. on a golf course like Ike, perhaps on a ranch in Midland Texas, well you are close – President and First Lady honor George and Laura Bush in Tanzania.
.
Who ordered the denial for fly-over rights for Bolivian President Morales in Portugal and France? How this stand out in relation to former CIA rendition flights criss-cross over Europe!
BREAKING NEWS: France24 – Morales’s plane en route after stopover Austria amid Snowden scandal.
Related: France24 – France seeks suspension of US-EU trade talks over NSA leaks.