{"id":70331,"date":"2016-02-29T12:44:34","date_gmt":"2016-02-29T12:44:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=70331"},"modified":"2016-02-29T12:44:34","modified_gmt":"2016-02-29T12:44:34","slug":"wikileaks-nsa-spied-on-israels-attempts-to-repair-relations-with-u-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/02\/wikileaks-nsa-spied-on-israels-attempts-to-repair-relations-with-u-s\/","title":{"rendered":"WikiLeaks: NSA Spied on Israel\u2019s Attempts to Repair Relations With U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"

23 Feb 2016 – <\/em>Newly published classified documents show the National Security Agency spied on a 2010 conversation between Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin\u00a0Netanyahu as the two discussed ways to improve Israel\u2019s relationship with the United States.<\/p>\n

\"Italian<\/a><\/p>\n

The Italian-Israeli conversation<\/a> is included in one of five NSA documents released Tuesday [23 Feb] by WikiLeaks, which has not disclosed the source of the leaks. Two of the documents focus on climate change, one relates to trade talks, and two report on Italian government communications.<\/p>\n

The intelligence reports date from 2007 through 2011.<\/p>\n

According to \u201cItalian diplomatic reporting of 13 March,\u201d Israel had reached out to Italy \u201cfor help in smoothing out the current rift in its relations with the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rift concerned Israel\u2019s decision to build 1,600 new houses in \u201ccontested East Jerusalem.\u201d \u201cBerlusconi promised to put Italy at Israel\u2019s disposal in helping mend the latter\u2019s ties with Washington,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n

The report was based on the targeting of three phone numbers belonging to Italian officials. The targeted officials were listed as Berlusconi\u2019s diplomatic adviser Marco Carnelos; national security adviser Bruno Archi; and the Italian Ambassador to NATO, Stefano Stefanini.<\/p>\n

The report is stamped \u201cREL TO USA, FVEY,\u201d indicating that the NSA could release it to other U.S. agencies and to the Five Eyes intelligence allies, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.<\/p>\n

The newly published reports provide additional details on U.S. efforts to spy on countries taking part in the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, which failed to reach an agreement. In 2014, documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed<\/a> that the NSA collected information about various countries\u2019 positions.<\/p>\n

One NSA report published by WikiLeaks contains details of a confidential discussion about climate change negotiations between U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the lead-up to the conference. The NSA report is stamped \u201cU.N. diplomatic,\u201d \u201cGerman leadership,\u201d and Top Secret Gamma, the \u201cGamma\u201d indicating an extremely sensitive spying operation.<\/p>\n

The U.N. spying was directed by \u201cS2C52,\u201d a team of analysts based in the NSA\u2019s\u00a0Maryland headquarters that specializes in operations against the United Nations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Another top-secret report reveals intercepted climate change discussions between German and Japanese officials. The German official, Bernd Pfaffenbach, was reported saying that the \u201ccrucial issue\u201d in an upcoming G-8 meeting was whether the United States was prepared to \u201caccept going beyond\u201d its previous position on climate change.<\/p>\n

The leaked documents show the NSA targeted 13\u00a0phone numbers<\/a> belonging to government officials and government offices in five countries: Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, and Switzerland. Earlier leaks of NSA intelligence reports by WikiLeaks revealed active targeting of phones in Germany as well. The Swiss phone tapping was used to intercept the communications of United Nations officials and a World Trade Organization\u00a0representative in Geneva. The Belgian phone tapping included a NATO official in Brussels.<\/p>\n

All but one of the 13\u00a0target phone numbers listed in the documents are still in use today.<\/p>\n

The interception methods stated on the latest leaked intelligence reports are \u201cUnconventional\u201d and \u201cSCS,\u201d which stands for Special Collection Service. SCS involves joint NSA and CIA eavesdropping operations run covertly inside U.S. and allied foreign embassy buildings in foreign capitals; it is unclear what \u201cUnconventional\u201d refers to.<\/p>\n

The NSA did not respond to request for comment.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________<\/p>\n

Nicky Hager<\/a><\/p>\n

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

Newly published classified documents show the National Security Agency spied on a 2010 conversation between Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Italian-Israeli conversation is included in one of five NSA documents released Tuesday [23 Feb 2016] by WikiLeaks, which has not disclosed the source of the leaks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-whistleblowing-surveillance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70331","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=70331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70331\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}