'Success Story': NSA Targeted French Foreign Ministry

[Catherina]

'Success Story': NSA Targeted French Foreign Ministry

Espionage by the US on France has already strained relations between the two countries, threatening a trans-Atlantic trade agreement. Now a document seen by SPIEGEL reveals that the NSA also spied on the French Foreign Ministry.

...

Dated June 2010, the "top secret" NSA document reveals that the intelligence agency was particularly interested in the diplomats' computer network. All of the country's embassies and consulates are connected with the Paris headquarters via a virtual private network (VPN), technology that is generally considered to be secure.

...

An overview lists different web addresses tapped into by the NSA, among them "diplomatie.gouv.fr," which was run from the Foreign Ministry's server. A list from September 2010 says that French diplomatic offices in Washington and at the United Nations in New York were also targeted, and given the codenames "Wabash" and "Blackfoot," respectively. NSA technicians installed bugs in both locations and conducted a "collection of computer screens" at the one at the UN.

A priority list also names France as an official target for the intelligence agency. In particular, the NSA was interested in the country's foreign policy objectives, especially the weapons trade, and economic stability.

US-French relations are being strained by such espionage activities. In early July, French President François Hollande threatened to suspend negotiations for a trans-Atlantic free trade agreement, demanding a guarantee from the US that it would cease spying after it was revealed that the French embassy in Washington had been targeted by the NSA.

"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, for all partners of the United States," he said at the time.

...

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nsa-targeted-french-foreign-ministry-a-919693.html

Colonial wars however, no problem.

[HooptieWagon]

1. There goes French cooperation inre Syria.

Chickens coming home to roost

[Catherina]

2. Hollande just put the brakes on his rhetoric because of the growing anger

His party doesn't want this intervention and the people massively don't want it so he's back-pedalling and going to ask for Parliamentary approval now. What he told French radio today is that "France can't go it alone and needs the coalition". France, Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are the ones who have been beating the war drums for the loudest for the pipeline. It was France who asked for UN protection of "liberated zones" in Syria last year. I think Hollande is more than willing to overlook the spying because this is his baby too, but the French Parliament, not so much. I could be totally off, that's just how it looks to me right now. What an interesting time for the chickens to come home eh?

[Recursion]

3. Good God. Our spies *spy*?

How awful.