Armin Medosch on Mon, 1 Jul 2013 22:50:34 +0200 (CEST)


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<nettime> NSA-spying-on-Europe outrage somewhat disingenuous



Hi,

it seems to me that the kind of outrage purportedly shown by German politicians and EU officials and parliamentarians about NSA leaks on spying is highly disingenuous, if not outright deceptive.

It has long been in the public domain that the USA were spying on their allies, and that a primary motivation for that was to gain commercial advantage.

I am not just pointing at the Echelon and Enfopol affairs in general but on specific work I have done with Duncan Campbell during my last year at Telepolis on US wirertapping for commercial reasons, so called COMINT.

The English investigative journalist Duncan Campbell was commissioned by the temporary committee of the European Parliament to write four reports. His summary, as well as the background papers, have been published on TP, when I was still editor of that magazine http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/7/7753/1.html

What was interesting was that while initial relevations aboput Echelon in 1999-2000 had created quite a stir, those relevations just a year later were passed over relatively quietly.

Maybe an indication that shows that Germans and EU officials were not that keen on taking that story further. About the reasons for that one can only speculate.

But to pretend now that all that gets revealed by Snowden comes highly surprising, that is really strange. It can only mean that a lot of covering up has to be done ... or anyone any other ideas

best
Armin





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