{"id":45275,"date":"2014-07-28T12:08:51","date_gmt":"2014-07-28T11:08:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=45275"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:33:36","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:33:36","slug":"the-nsas-new-partner-in-spying-saudi-arabias-brutal-state-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/07\/the-nsas-new-partner-in-spying-saudi-arabias-brutal-state-police\/","title":{"rendered":"The NSA\u2019s New Partner in Spying: Saudi Arabia\u2019s Brutal State Police"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Barack<\/a>

Barack Obama and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah. Photo credit: Ron Edmonds\/AP<\/p><\/div>\n

25 Jul 2014 – <\/em>The National Security Agency last year significantly expanded its cooperative relationship with the Saudi Ministry of Interior, one of the world\u2019s most repressive and abusive government agencies. An April 2013 top secret memo <\/a>provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden details the agency\u2019s plans \u201cto provide direct analytic and technical support\u201d to the Saudis on \u201cinternal security\u201d matters.<\/p>\n

The Saudi Ministry of Interior\u2014referred to in the document as MOI\u2014 has been condemned for years as one of the most brutal human rights violators in the world. In 2013, the U.S. State Department reported<\/a> that \u201cMinistry of Interior officials sometimes subjected prisoners and detainees to torture and other physical abuse,\u201d specifically mentioning a 2011 episode in which MOI agents allegedly \u201cpoured an antiseptic cleaning liquid down [the] throat\u201d of one human rights activist. The report also notes the MOI\u2019s use of invasive surveillance targeted at political and religious dissidents.<\/p>\n

But as the State Department publicly catalogued those very abuses, the NSA worked to provide increased surveillance assistance to the ministry that perpetrated them. The move is part of the Obama Administration\u2019s increasingly close ties with the Saudi regime; beyond the new cooperation with the MOI, <\/strong>the memo describes \u201ca period of rejuvenation\u201d for the NSA\u2019s relationship with the Saudi Ministry of Defense.<\/p>\n

In general, U.S. support for the Saudi regime is long-standing. One secret 2007 NSA memo lists Saudi Arabia as one of four countries where the U.S. \u201chas [an] interest in regime continuity.\u201d<\/p>\n

But from the end of the 1991 Gulf War until recently, the memo says, the NSA had a \u201cvery limited\u201d relationship with the Saudi kingdom. In December 2012, the U.S. director of national intelligence, <\/strong>James Clapper,<\/strong> authorized the agency to expand its \u201cthird party\u201d relationship with Saudi Arabia to include the sharing of signals intelligence, or \u201cSIGINT,\u201d capability with the MOD\u2019s Technical Affairs Directorate (TAD).<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the approval of the Third Party SIGINT relationship,\u201d the memo reports, the NSA \u201cintends to provide direct analytic and technical support to TAD.\u201d The goal is \u201cto facilitate the Saudi government\u2019s ability to utilize SIGINT to locate and track individuals of mutual interest within Saudi Arabia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even before this new initiative in 2012, the CIA and other American intelligence agencies had been working with the Saudi regime to bolster \u201cinternal security\u201d and track alleged terrorists. According to the memo, the NSA began collaborating with the MOD in 2011 on a \u201csensitive access initiative\u2026 focused on internal security and terrorist activity on the Arabian Peninsula\u201d; that partnership was conducted \u201cunder the auspices of CIA\u2019s relationship with the MOI\u2019s Mabahith (General Directorate for Investigations, equivalent to FBI).\u201d<\/p>\n

The NSA\u2019s formal \u201cThird Party\u201d relationship with the Saudis involves arming the MOI with highly advanced surveillance technology. The NSA \u201cprovides technical advice on SIGINT topics such as data exploitation and target development to TAD,\u201d the memo says, \u201cas well as a sensitive source collection capability.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Saudi Ministry of Defense also relies on the NSA for help with \u201csignals analysis equipment upgrades, decryption capabilities and advanced training on a wide range of topics.\u201d The document states that while the NSA \u201cis able to respond to many of those requests, some must be denied due to the fact that they place sensitive SIGINT equities at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the past year, the Saudi government has escalated its crackdown on activists, dissidents, and critics of the government. Earlier this month, Saudi human rights lawyer and activist Waleed Abu al-Khair was sentenced to 15 years in prison<\/a> by a so-called \u201cterrorist court\u201d on charges of undermining the state and insulting the judiciary. In May, a liberal blogger, Raif Badawi, was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes<\/a>; in June, human rights activist Mukhlif Shammari was sentenced to five years in prison for writing about the mistreatment of Saudi women.<\/p>\n

At the time of the al-Khair sentencing, State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki issued a statement saying, \u201cWe urge the Saudi government to respect international human rights norms, a point we make to them regularly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if the U.S. takes human rights records into account before collaborating with foreign security agencies, a spokesman for the office of the director of national intelligence told The Intercept<\/em>: \u201cYes. We cannot comment on specific intelligence matters but, as a general principle, human rights considerations inform our decisions on intelligence sharing with foreign governments.\u201d<\/p>\n

______________________________<\/p>\n

Glenn Greenwald is a journalist, constitutional lawyer, commentator, and author of three New York Times best-selling books on politics and law. His fifth book, <\/em>No Place to Hide<\/em>, about the U.S. surveillance state and his experiences reporting on the Snowden documents around the world, will be released in April 2014. Prior to his collaboration with Pierre Omidyar, Glenn\u2019s column was featured at <\/em>Guardian US<\/em> and <\/em>Salon<\/em>. He was the debut winner, along with Amy Goodman, of the Park Center I.F. Stone Award for Independent Journalism in 2008, and also received the 2010 Online Journalism Award for his investigative work on the abusive detention conditions of Chelsea Manning. For his 2013 NSA reporting, he received the Gannett Foundation award for investigative journalism and the Gannett Foundation watchdog journalism award; the Esso Premio for Excellence in Investigative Reporting in Brazil (the first non-Brazilian to win), and the Electronic Frontier Foundation\u2019s Pioneer Award. Along with Laura Poitras, <\/em>Foreign Policy<\/em> magazine named him one of the top 100 Global Thinkers for 2013. He lives in Rio, Brazil.<\/em><\/p>\n

Murtaza Hussain is a journalist and political commentator. His work focuses on human rights, foreign policy and cultural affairs. Murtaza\u2019s work has appeared in <\/em>The New York Times<\/em>, <\/em>The Guardian<\/em>, <\/em>The Globe and Mail<\/em>, <\/em>Salon<\/em> and elsewhere.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 firstlook.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

25 Jul 2014 – The NSA last year significantly expanded its cooperative relationship with the Saudi Ministry of Interior, one of the world\u2019s most repressive and abusive government agencies. An April 2013 top secret memo provided by Edward Snowden details the agency\u2019s plans \u201cto provide direct analytic and technical support\u201d to the Saudis on \u201cinternal security\u201d matters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-whistleblowing-surveillance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45275\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}