This might be news to some, but the National Security Agency exists to spy, and spying is the only reason it exists. The NSA was never appointed to protect the privacy of foreign citizens, or corporations, or agencies, but to break said privacy with prejudice in furtherance of national security interests. Everything the NSA does, or has ever done, is illegal in every other country in the world — just as when any country’s intelligence agencies operate in the United States, they break our laws, too. Even before the invention of electronic communications in the 19th Century, this is how the spy game has always been played by every nation. It has never, ever had a different set of rules at any point in human history.
But you would never guess this from the paroxysms of outrage over NSA spying that continue to spill out onto the internet every day. According to the weirdly naive and historically-challenged propaganda of endless self-appointed experts, the NSA has done its job too well, and ought to apologize for being so successful. Ever since Edward Snowden’s purloined PowerPoint slides emerged in the hyperbolic reporting of Glenn Greenwald, there has been a steady drumbeat of this nonsense, with new “revelations” arriving every week to the outraged fanfare of those who mistake the NSA for a historical aberration from some imaginary golden era of blissful, espionage-free peace.
The latest example of this phenomenon is the shocking, horrific, terrible “news” that the NSA has been spying on the phone calls of foreign leaders. We already knew about Angela Merkel’s iPhone, but in fact the agency’s efforts were much broader than that. Surely someone, somewhere out there is surprised that US intelligence agencies collect research on foreign leaders, right? Surely:
A series of classified files from the archive provided to reporters by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, also seen by The Intercept, reveal that the NSA appears to have included Merkel in a surveillance database alongside more than 100 others foreign leaders. The documents also confirm for the first time that, in March 2013, the NSA obtained a top-secret court order against Germany as part of U.S. government efforts to monitor communications related to the country. Meanwhile, the British spy agency Government Communications Headquarters targeted three German companies in a clandestine operation that involved infiltrating the companies’ computer servers and eavesdropping on the communications of their staff.
[…] Merkel was targeted in a broader NSA surveillance effort. She appears to have been placed in the NSA’s so-called “Target Knowledge Base“ (TKB), which Der Spiegel described as the central agency database of individual targets. An internal NSA description states that employees can use it to analyze “complete profiles“ of targeted people.
A classified file demonstrating an NSA search system named Nymrod shows Merkel listed alongside other heads of state. Only 11 names are shown on the document, including Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko, and Colombia’s Alvaro Uribe – the list is in alphabetical order by first name – but it indicates that the full list contains 122 names.
Once you have gotten over your shock and horror that the NSA is spying on the dictators of Syria and Belarus, it’s time to express your indignation that the United States would spy on high-level communications by our allies, too. Because nothing says “I don’t know jack shit about the history of spying” like taking umbrage that American spies would spy on ostensibly-friendly nations that also spy on the United States all the time — nations like, say, Germany, which has its own NSA.
Project Rahab uses SIGINT — intelligence based on interception of signals, conversations and electronic communications — to gather information on foreign business competition that can benefit German companies. BND officers have penetrated computer networks and databases in countries including Russia, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Italy, and the United States.
In his book Spies Among Us, former NSA intelligence and computer systems analyst Ira Winkler details Project Rahab hackers’ successful infiltration of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), which provides the network for financial institutions worldwide to send and receive trillions of dollars in a secure and reliable environment. The ability to monitor SWIFT transactions would provide German businesses a leg up — at least.
[…] Project Rahab poses a far greater threat to U.S. national security. Of particular concern, according to Winkler, is “the apparent willingness of German businesses to funnel sensitive information and technology to nations that are hostile to the United States.” For example, Iran. Much of what Iran has acquired is nuclear technology. (Emphasis mine)
I will not hold my breath waiting for the staff of Glenn Greenwald’s new website to express their collective shock! that Germany would sell nuclear technology to Iran, or that German intelligence agencies are hacking into American corporate networks right now, or that the BND is probably trying to hack the president’s BlackBerry every freaking day.
Oh yes, about the presidential BlackBerry. There is a simple reason why Obama hasn’t joined the iPhone revolution along with Merkel: the Secret Service won’t let him because the iPhone has security problems.
BlackBerry has long enjoyed a reputation for greater security in its devices than Apple or Android, thanks to its strong encryption practices. As AFP notes, that’s one reason it remains popular with Washington officials, even as its market share slides everywhere else. Yet even two years ago Ars Technica was reporting that iPhone and Android devices were catching up in security features like encryption, forced PIN entry, and the ability to wipe your phone remotely if it’s stolen. On the other hand, that same piece added that organizations find it easier to control how their employees use BlackBerries, including app installations and operating-system upgrades. The mere idea of Obama trying out iMessage or automatically upgrading to iOS 7 before it’s been fully vetted would probably give the Secret Service heart palpitations. They probably figure: Why take the risk?
[…] “If the people responsible for security give you a nod and a wink that maybe an iPhone *isn’t* the most sensible device in the world for an American president to rely upon for his privacy and security, I guess they must have their reasons, right?”
Everyone who actually believes that foreign intelligence agencies are NOT trying to tap the president’s BlackBerry at this very moment, please form a line to the left, because I have bridges to sell all of you. The same goes for anyone who thinks that German intelligence agencies haven’t been collecting massive information files on President Obama since he was a mere candidate.
Maybe the world ought to be different. Maybe nations and leaders ought to trust one another and refrain from spying on each other at all. That might be nice, but this is not that world. Our actual, real, not-imaginary world is filled with spies who are constantly spying. And in our world as it actually exists, the NSA just happens to be one huge — and hugely successful — spying agency. Maybe America would be better off if we disarmed ourselves and discharged all our spies unilaterally; maybe then, a magical Utopian global peace with rainbow-crapping unicorns would break out as other countries followed our shining example of freedom. But the empirical evidence says that this would not be the case, and that our world would not become more peaceful or stable or safer or more private without the NSA. We would simply be the only advanced nation on Earth that doesn’t have a spy agency.
