The US National Security Agency (NSA), which is tasked with spying on communications worldwide, secured legal approval in 2010 to target 193 states, with the exception of four English-speaking countries, including Britain, according to today's "Washington Post.".
The American newspaper obtained from former NSA consultant Edward Snowden 2010 court documents, which give the NSA permission to monitor communications in a list of countries that were deemed to be of vital interest to the American intelligence agency.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the EU and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are also among the NSA's legitimate targets. However, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the four other countries in the "Five Eyes" group, with which the US has very close intelligence cooperation, are specifically excluded from this list.
The granting of this legal approval, which was given by the Fisc, the secret court overseeing the actions of intelligence agencies abroad and was valid for one year, does not mean that the NSA's spying activities permanently targeted governments or organizations in these 193 countries, but only that this American agency had the legal ability to operate.
This legal authorization also allowed the NSA to intercept any communication “regarding” these targets, something that alarmed civil liberties advocates in the US, as such a practice could include emails from American citizens that referred to or were related to any foreign target.
American law generally provides greater protection for the privacy of Americans than for foreigners.
On Friday, the director of intelligence released the first transparency report documenting the volume of NSA wiretapping. In 2013, the NSA had nearly 90,000 targets, with each target corresponding to a person, group or organization.
A reform of the NSA's phone surveillance program in the US is being drafted in Congress, but it does not foresee any change to the programs abroad.
Source: newsit.gr
