Published time: 30 Dec, 2015 03:46Edited time: 30 Dec,
2015 04:30
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a
joint meeting of Congress in the House Chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington. ©
Jonathan Ernst / Reuters
The NSA spied on Israel despite a US pledge to curtail
surveillance of ally states, revealing how the Israelis lobbied US lawmakers to
reject the Iranian nuclear deal. The snooping also reportedly eavesdropped on
some members of Congress’ private talks.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the spying has been ongoing during President Barack
Obama’s two terms and continued unabated even after Edward Snowden’s surveillance
revelations in 2013. Following the scandal, the Obama administration composed a
so-called protected list, shielding close allies from surveillance, including
countries such as Germany or France.
However, despite close ties, Israel was not included and
was, instead, made the NSA’s top surveillance priority, along with Turkey.
“Going dark on Bibi? Of course we wouldn’t do that,” a senior US official told the Journal, using
Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s nickname.
WSJ report that NSA spied on Congress and Israel communications very disturbing. Actually outrageous. Maybe unprecedented abuse of power.
President Obama approved of spying on his Israeli
counterpart because it served a “compelling national security purpose,”current
and former US officials told the WSJ. The new report is based on more than
two-dozen interviews with both intelligence and administration officials.
As a part of the surveillance, the NSA eavesdropped on
communications between Israeli and US lawmakers amid efforts to reach a nuclear
deal with Iran. Specifically, the efforts of the Netanyahu government to turn
legislators against the negotiations and convince them to block the emerging
agreement were revealed, the article said.
It was also discovered that Netanyahu and his advisers
leaked details they had learned of though Israeli intelligence concerning the
US-Iran negotiations, and coordinated talks with Jewish-American groups
against the deal and tried to influence votes of undecided US lawmakers.
NSA and Obama officials need to be investigated and prosecuted if any truth to WSJ reports. NSA loses all credibility. Scary.
The US managed to capture communications between
Netanyahu and his aides, which led to mistrust between Washington and Tel Aviv
and created a politically sticky situation when the Israeli leader spoke to
Congress in an attempt to push through his anti-Iran message.
The White House believed that the intercepted
information could be worthwhile in countering Netanyahu’s efforts. Yet, the WSJ
reports, it was clear that asking for it directly would be “politically
risky.” To avoid “a paper trail stemming out from a request,” the
White House left it to the NSA to decide what information should be either
shared or withheld.
However, this is when the NSA realized it was also
sweeping up some conversations the Israelis were having with US lawmakers and
American-Jewish groups.
“That raised fears—an ‘Oh-s— moment,’ one senior US
official said—that the executive branch would be accused of spying on
Congress,” the WSJ writes.
NSA helped GCHQ spies hack Juniper firewalls – Snowden leak on.rt.com/70bn
According to the report, the NSA removed the
lawmakers’ names from intelligence reports, along with personal information and “trash
talk.”
The White House did not ask the NSA to identify any of
the lawmakers caught in the surveillance.
“From what I can tell, we haven’t had a problem with
how incidental collection has been handled concerning lawmakers,”Representative Adam Schiff, a California Democrat and
the ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,
told the WSJ.
When reached for comment, government officials
representing Israel, Germany, and France declined to speak to the Journal, as
did the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the NSA.
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