Look who’s watching

Mounting evidence of US spying shows that Obama has less noble interests at heart.

The latest round of documents from Edward Snowden reveals that US spying agencies monitored the telephones of 35 world leaders. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was outraged at the report that the National Security Agency (NSA) had tapped her phone since 2002. She made that clear during a call to President Obama by stating that she “unequivocally disapproves of such practices and sees them as completely unacceptable”. The German leader stressed that this had “severely shaken” relationships between Europe and the US. To add fuel to this fire, further revelations following their phone conversation indicate that Obama was aware of the phone tap on Merkel and he did nothing to halt the surveillance.

The timing of these leaks is also inconvenient for the US since it is currently working on a number of substantial issues with European allies, ranging from a trade agreement to chemical weapons inspections in Syria. Their working relationship has to be slowly eroding with each new release of confidential documents chronicling NSA surveillance of the European population and their leaders.

What’s disturbing about the NSA spy programme and the American defence is the bulk spying that targets all and doesn’t differentiate between millions of citizens going about their daily business and terror suspects. This kind of bulk snooping runs counter to the insistence of US officials’ claims that they are merely protecting Americans from another 9/11. How is spying on economic conferences, oil companies and the UN preventing terrorist attacks?

The US has a spying pact with the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. These countries share the results of their spying ventures with each other. The US also hands over raw intelligence data to Israel, including personal correspondence from their own citizens. Germany and France have joined forces and are demanding that the US sign a ‘code of conduct’ with the EU countries in order to prohibit the NSA from conducting mass surveillance on Europe. This has put the UK in an awkward position and David Cameron was pressured to silently agree with the EU statement against US mass surveillance. However, since Britain is already part of the Anglophone Five Eyes pact on intelligence sharing, they will not take part even if a code of conduct is agreed upon. Cameron claimed that leaks by Edward Snowden and newspapers are making it difficult to protect his country and citizens. Inconvenient is probably a more suitable word because there is no evidence that American and British citizens are less safe than they were six months ago.

European nations are not the only ones who exploded over the NSA eavesdropping on them. US relations with Mexico and Brazil have also taken a hit after reports confirmed that their leaders were under NSA surveillance. While intelligence gathering is vital and due to its nature we’ll never know the benefits of the tactics, the NSA’s approach is currently hurting US foreign policy efforts.

With each new NSA leak, it becomes increasingly difficult for the Obama Administration to avoid the issue or claim ignorance as has been its preferred tactic thus far. In an address to the UN General Assembly this year, Obama stated, “I believe America is exceptional, in part because we have shown a willingness, to the sacrifice of blood and treasure to stand up, not only for our own interests, but for the interests of all.” There is some truth to this statement since his surveillance policies are apt to end up sacrificing treasure in the form of losing international technology business. But when you take a closer look, mounting evidence of the US spying on foreign oil competition and European leaders shows that he has less noble interests at heart.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 4^th, 2013.

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