Experts: NSA Internet surveillance program still raising concerns

July 6, 2015 - PRLog -- The US National Security Agency (NSA) has been conducting surveillance of top-of-the-line businessmen and politicians in France and Germany for over ten years, alleges WikiLeaks that published series of new documents on June 29 and July 1, 2015.

The files reveal that the American intelligence services chose several high-ranking persons as the targets of their telephone eavesdropping system, and created a database of intercepted information of economic and political value. Among other things, according to the documents, the US, and, in certain cases, other members of the so-called “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance that also includes the Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, gained access to information on large-scale French contracts for over $200 million, and the contents of communications between the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her personal assistant.

The secret documents caused an agitation in the European political society: the French President Francois Hollande called the situation unacceptable, and the German Chief of Staff Peter Altmaier summoned the US Ambassador John Emerson for immediate talks.

The journalists also took notice of the recent WikiLeaks releases. One of them, Simon Shuster of Time magazine, compared the events of the recent weeks with the 2013 scandal over the wiretapping of Angela Merkel’s phone calls. The German prosecutor’s office dropped the investigation of the case in June 2015, he reminds.

“As Germany’s experience suggests, no real rupture in relations comes out of these scandals, at least in part because the Europeans rely on the US not only for trade but security and the sharing of intelligence,” he writes.

Moreover, the published documents once brought the public attention towards the issue of mass Internet surveillance (http://penzanews.ru/en/opinion/55391-2014) that went viral after a former US intelligence services employee Edward Snowden published the first batch of top-secret files in June 2013.

In a Q&A video session with Amnesty International held in early June, he recalled how the leaders of the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance and several other countries introduced the indiscriminate surveillance measures under the guise of terrorism protection measures, doing all they could to avoid scrutiny.

“Courts have ruled [the US program] unlawful. They have said that from the very first day it was against the law, it was a violation of basic constitutional rights. The White House did a classified investigation of it, and they found that it never stopped a single terrorist attack,” stressed the former security agency employee whose story was depicted in the documentary film “Citizenfour.”

According to Anton Nordenfur, party organizer for the Pirate Party of Sweden, the current situation is further complicated by the fact that the Washington officials may have learned a lot from the Snowden’s case.

“I think it is more likely that the US gets more professional and more efficient in the spying programs, and simply being harder on whistleblowers, and being more careful about what it’s making that is being leaked,” he said in an interview to “PenzaNews” agency. He also added that Edward Snowden, who currently resides in Russia, risked becoming a prisoner of Guantanamo Bay or even losing his life.

He also suggested that the recent release by WikiLeaks would only have a short-term effect.

“But I also think that it will lead to the US continuing to spy on chiefs of states, just in different ways and more effective ways in which they won’t be discovered in the same way. […] Even if there was outcry about stopping the program, and even if they were to come out and say they would completely cease all programs, I’m entirely pessimistic about the idea that they would actually cease them,” the speaker noted.

According to Anton Nordenfur, the only thing that was damaged by the release of the documents describing the law-breaking activities of the American intelligence agencies that targeted their own allies was the public image of the US authorities. The reason behind it, he said, was that millions of people all over the world began to see the online privacy issue in a different light, as the security of information is important, for both the regular citizens who want their private data safe and politicians and businesses who seek to protect their professional and trade secrets.

“In a [recent] interview with the Swedish Prime Minister, he talked about how he didn’t have any faith in talking over phone anymore. And I think, unfortunately, that’s a good thing, because that means there are faith to more leaks in the future,” the member of the Pirate Party of Sweden stated.

At the same time, Peter Swire, professor of Law and Ethics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, privacy expert under former US Presidents George Bush Jr. and Bill Clinton, said that Edward Snowden’s decision to publish the classified documents was a very influential event.

“For me, there are positive consequences of the Snowden revelations, such as starting this important debate on privacy. There were also negative consequences, such as revealing to North Korea and other totalitarian regimes some of the capabilities of the US intelligence services, and some of the revelations were so detailed that they tipped off dangerous nations to change their behavior,” he stressed, noting that the actions of the former security service employee constitute a criminal action.

However, he noted that these releases provoked the debate and pushed for the review of the American bulk data collection program.

“I was a member of President Obama’s review group on intelligence and communication technologies. He created a five-person group to review the NSA program in August 2013, and I was of the five people from it. […] Our review group recommended additional pro-privacy protection, especially concerning Section 702,” Peter Swire recalled, noting that the well-known PRISM system that went operational in 2007 is working under FISA Section 702 authority.

Full text news agency "PenzaNews":http://penzanews.ru/en/opinion/58957-2015