(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Already more than ten years ago, a person "who knows" told us that the US National Security Agency (NSA) was monitoring everything – all phone calls, all emails. If you did not think that anyone was listening to what you were saying, you could meet physically without having the cell phone on, as the cellphone could function as a microphone. And if the NSA didn't read emails in real time, they could go back to look at them in retrospect. But then I felt that it was not possible to talk about it publicly – because the media had never taken it seriously. As long as there was no evidence, it was better to keep quiet. At the same time, NSA experts who had developed the technology for these eavesdropping systems – William Binney, Kirk Wiebe, Edward Loomis and Thomas Drake – went to the Department of Defense's Inspector General and Congress to stop it. The eavesdropping system violated the American Constitution. They found it unethical to have a system that was not only illegal, but also went much further than George Orwell or the East German Stasi could have dreamed. Binney quotes former Stasi officer Wolfgang Schmidt who said that within Stasi they could only dream of this system, which allowed such total control of all citizens. But instead of talking to these four NSA experts, their homes were searched by large armed police forces. The four were threatened with trial, which also happened for Drake. For Edward Snowden it was obvious that he could not act within the American system. The experience of the four showed that this road was closed. It was also obvious to him that he could not speak the matter publicly without presenting evidence. Without evidence, the media had never taken him seriously. He had to gather large amounts of evidence to break through the silence. In addition, some US officials were willing to stop a leak at any cost, which meant he risked his own life if he went out with the information he had. He had to find a state that gave him the freedom to meet journalists without the Americans having full access. He chose the only thing possible: Hong Kong. The choice was made with care. Hong Kong gives Western journalists the opportunity to move freely, while Hong Kong belongs to China, which hardly wanted to give US special forces free access. But the journalists who interviewed him never knew if he would be there the following day. In retrospect, we can read in the US IntelNews that Macau authorities are dismissing Chinese media reports that the special forces on the island would have stopped 16 US agents trying to neutralize Snowden in Hong Kong, but what actually happened is unknown. Both the US and the Chinese side have a strong interest in dementia. What happened these days may be that our children know about 50 or 70 years. Edward Snowden's assessment of the risks he took was entirely realistic. The fact that the US forced President Evo Morales (Bolivia) aircraft over Europe to land in Vienna, to see if Snowden hid on the aircraft, says it all. The United States was willing to violate the sovereignty of a country and its president to address the leak. Snowden knew that his conversation with journalists meant the end to the freedom he had, but he knew at the same time that every other choice had made him partly responsible in a more advanced surveillance community than Stasi had ever managed to achieve. And he knew that this system was not intended to protect us from terrorists but to create a system of political control. The fact that the NSA intercepted the mobile phones to German Chancellor Angela Merkel or to Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was not about terrorism, but an attempt to control these states. Of course, the United States wanted to know what these leaders thought to shape or stifle their policies, but more importantly: the eavesdropping could reveal embarrassments that could be used for extortion, forcing the German and Brazilian leaders to follow US interests. This means that this system calls into question the whole idea of democracy. The political leaders of a state that had been elected by its population would be forced to follow politics to a foreign power.
The interception could reveal embarrassments that could be used for blackmail, to force German and Brazilian leaders to follow the interests of the United States.
A couple of examples. Before first: The German economy loses a lot on sanctions against Russia (as opposed to the US which does not have these economic ties to Russia). The sanctions against Russia are at the same time sanctions against Germany, but despite this, Angela Merkel along with the Americans has been active in pursuing the sanctions policy. I do not claim that her policy would depend on American blackmail. It is possible that she firmly believes in her own policy, but it is easy to see how information from interception could contribute to the US manipulation of Merkel's policy. Before andra: We know that in the 1980s, the United States had an agreement with Saudi Arabia on increased oil production in order to lower oil prices and thus greatly reduce Soviet income (which came mainly from oil and gas). Income would be reduced to a minimum, while US support for the Afghanistan uprising would increase Soviet costs. The goal was for the Soviet Union to break down economically. This was CIA chief Bill Casey's policy, and the same policy is driven by everything to be judged today. With the support of the US, the Saudis seek to keep oil production up to guarantee low oil prices, which is a powerful blow to Russia, Venezuela and Iran. But this policy also applies to Norway, and to Norwegian oil production. In order for the Americans to deal with this, it is important to be able to intercept all communications on the Norwegian side. When basically deceiving one's allies, one must also be prepared when criticism arises to stave it off before it has serious consequences. In an email from an acquaintance in the United States, he sent a link and wrote: The whole website is interesting. ” I clicked on the link, but the document was blocked. It was no longer available, and it must have been blocked just before I received it. When I tried again a little later, it turned out that the link was no longer in the email I had received. I thought it was strange and therefore asked my friend to send the email again, but this time the email had no link. It just said, "Have you seen this one?" I talked to him on Skype. It turned out then that there was no link now either on the email he had sent to me. The link that I had clicked on and which he had sent was neither in my e-mail nor in his. I do not know how it went, but probably NSA had blocked the link and removed it from all emails according to a special program. But it also means that NSA can access our emails to change their content. It may not be that serious in our daily communications, but in a crisis situation where a foreign minister sends an email to another foreign minister, and the NSA chooses to change the content of the email, it can of course have extremely serious consequences. A team from the NSA helped the Israelis during the Six Day War in 1967. They managed to manipulate the communication between Egypt and Jordan. They sent false positive reports from Cairo to Amman, which was apparently confirmed by the radar screens showing flights flying from Egypt towards Israel (which were actually Israeli bombers on their way back). But this false information led to Jordan entering the war, and thus Israel could take the West Bank. The only difference between what happened in 1967 and what is happening today is that communication control today is millions of times more advanced. In a crisis situation, you cannot rely on emails or even on the phone. We live in a world where all electronic communication can be manipulated. It is thanks to Snowden that this is now widely known. Tunander is a research professor at the Institute for Peace Research (PRIO) in Oslo.
