You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

NSA Spied on U.N. Internal Video System, 80 Embassies

HeadlineAug 26, 2013

The latest disclosures from whistleblower Edward Snowden have provided more details on how the National Security Agency has spied on the United Nations and countries worldwide. Citing Snowden’s leaks, the German magazine Der Spiegel reports the NSA decoded the U.N.'s internal video conferencing system to eavesdrop last year. One NSA official wrote: “the data traffic gives us internal video teleconferences of the United Nations. (yay!)” The spying on U.N. communications would violate the U.N.'s Espionage Act. Overall, an NSA operation called “Special Collection Services” bugged or monitored some 80 embassies and consulates around the world, including the European Union offices near the U.N.'s New York headquarters as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency. According to Der Speigel, the NSA's embassy spy program “has little or nothing to do with warding off terrorists.”

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top