
WikiLeaks reveals the NSA spied on Berlusconi and his closest advisors - secfirstmd
http://espresso.repubblica.it/inchieste/2016/02/22/news/wikileaks-reveals-the-nsa-spied-on-berlusconi-and-his-closest-advisors-1.251443
======
dmix
Too bad the newspaper decided to go with the "NSA is spying on x president"
headline rather than focusing on the content of the spying (involving details
relevant to Italian politics and history) which is clearly the intended goal
in releasing this.

The responses here on HN are sadly predictable as a result and likely will
draw a similar response from the public.

Wikieaks has never really had a moral agenda like Snowden in regards to why
they are releasing the information in the first place. Assange has repeatedly
stated that he simply believes all secret information should be released. In
the process they hope to expose corruption in the political systems. The fact
they released proof the NSA was spying on a foreign leader isn't the story
here, nor it that really a big noteworthy reveal considering the endless
Snowden leaks, so we should stop pretending that was the real goal here and
dismissing it on those grounds.

That being said, the fact Wikileaks was capable of getting access to plaintext
NSA intercepts _is_ in fact interesting. Not the usual high-level vague
Snowden powerpoint slides. So if we're going to play that game this is still
atypical in the greater scope of the NSA releases in the past two years.

~~~
cronjobber
Yes and no. In the context of Assange's goals, NSA involvement is very
interesting.

To Wikileaks, the credible threat of future leaking is probably more important
than the single leak of past infractions, because the threat impedes the flow
of internal communications, which makes an "unjust" organization's internal
"thought processes" more costly and less efficient.

Proven NSA involvement basically means there's no cheap way to keep high
stakes secrets safe from leaking. The NSA has the bigger budget and better
technology, so you can't defend against this path of leaking. _Yet NSA leaks
too_ , so it seems NSA can't defend themselves, either.

Taken together, this says _nobody_ can defend against leaking: That's
Wikileaks' most favored state of affairs.

------
pnathan
In news today, the SIGINT branch of the United States government collected
signals intelligence on a key public official in another country; in
particular, it did this at a moment of crisis, allowing the United States
government to have an edge of knowledge in charting its policies.

~~~
duncan_bayne
Yeah I sort of thought that's its legitimate purpose (as opposed to domestic
surveillance).

~~~
pnathan
Yes, this is what it's chartered to do.

Now, there exists a group of people, of which Assange is one (as far as I can
tell), who believe that _spying is wrong_ , and governmental secrecy is
_wrong_. Thus this particular Wikileaks release, and, afaict, a lot of the
Wikileaks effort has gone into promulgating that ideological goal. I would
note that governmental transparency is pursued by multiple political groups
across the US spectrum: police transparency, foreign policy transparency,
purchasing transparency, etc. It's not a simple bijective mapping between the
thought-movement Assange is with and the goal of governmental transparency;
there are profound nuances and deep variances of goal within the broader
'transparency' ideal.

As for me, I am perfectly content to have the spy game played against heads of
state; especially if it keeps down total system instability and human
suffering.

~~~
guelo
Spying is illegal in most countries, including the United States. If an
Italian spy were caught here stealing Obama's communications he would be put
in jail for a lengthy term. If an American spy were caught in Italy they would
also be arrested and sent to jail. This whole concept that it's OK for _my_
country to spy on others is strange and hypocritical. It is not heroic, legal,
or moral, to spy on other countries unless there has been a declaration of
war.

~~~
tokenadult
No, the most common treatment of a spy acting under diplomatic cover (and that
is the most common kind of spy) is simply to tell the purported diplomat that
he may no longer stay in the host country, now being _persona non grata_. All
countries around the world agree that they need to spy on one another and need
to agree to be spied on by one another to make sure that diplomatic statements
through official channels are verifiable. National leaders have to know the
intentions of other national leaders--it would be irresponsible not to try to
know.

AFTER EDIT: To clarify this point a bit, the world of espionage practice
distinguishes "operatives" (nationals-employees of the foreign government, who
first of all need a visa status even to be in the host country) from "agents"
(nationals of the host country, who often have employment status in some
sensitive position in the host country's government or armed forces). Yes, the
United States and absolutely every country is harsh in its treatment of its
own citizens who act as espionage agents directed by the intelligence
operatives of foreign countries. Quite a few of the prisoners in the federal
SuperMax prison in Colorado are people like John Walker or Robert Hanssen who
were paid by the United States taxpayers to handle secret information with
discretion and who were pledged by their terms of employment to not have
contacts with foreign intelligence operatives at those operatives' direction.
Men like that do hard prison time in any country where their activities are
discovered. But the foreign operative usually just ends up expelled from the
host country, unless there was something illegal in itself about the foreign
operative's presence in the host country.

~~~
qrendel
From the release on the Wikileaks site
([https://wikileaks.org/nsa-201602/](https://wikileaks.org/nsa-201602/)):

 _" The US government has signed agreements with the UN that it will not
engage in such conduct against the UN--let alone its Secretary General."_

------
secfirstmd
While it's arguable that Berlusconi was a sensible target...How does that
justify spying on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in
Afghanistan? Or from previous revelations, UNICEF - the children's agency?

FWIW, I've just started laying out one aspect of this debate and how
intelligence operation blowback can affect the perception of neutrality of
NGOs working on the ground. This increasingly seems to lead to a rise in
deaths of aid workers and many of the people they work to help. E.g Polio in
Pakistan.

[https://medium.com/@roryireland/latest-wikileaks-
documents-i...](https://medium.com/@roryireland/latest-wikileaks-documents-
irish-citizen-working-for-the-un-was-targeted-by-the-
nsa-f345b73b73df#.lki1vv63g)

~~~
argonaut
Corruption. Obviously we're both speculating here, but accountability is a
serious problem with NGOs, along with corruption/graft/general-wastefulness.
So _if_ the US suspected massive (tens of millions of dollars, or more)
corruption, that's a plausible reason.

I'm not saying it's likely, just that there are possible reasons out there in
the world.

~~~
wavefunction
I dunno, the US Government had billions of USD go mysteriously missing during
our occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan so it seems unlikely that the powers
that be are too concerned about corruption for the sake of stamping out
corruption.

~~~
argonaut
Total non sequitur. Just because X does Y in A context does not mean it isn't
concerned about Y in B context. Not to mention it's also plausible some of
that money went to black budget projects.

------
vonklaus
Snowden's strategy, or at least whoever managed information for the team, was
super smart about the first 12 weeks.

They kept the government mostly in yhe dark about the depth of what they knew,
and executed s perfect slow burn.

The agency went reeling from one disclosure to the next hastily making up lies
and then having them disproved in subsequent releases.

Obviously there was more to it, however the main point is that the opposite
seems to be true now. Even for receptive people, we just _know_ and it is an
effective strategy for the govt to habituate people.

Unless the facts surrounding an event gave relavent subdata and a narrative
can be brought into focus with the new insight, this isn't news it is
habituating the public to accept it.

I don't want to accept it, but simultaneously it is obvious that as noted in
the thread, "SIGINT, is gathering signal intrlligience". So it ends up being a
reminder that we have given up s lot, but not bad enough(on the per story
basis) to ignite support.

Also, I am concerned about the risk we tale decentralizing our data. We may
give up the opportunity to have amazing trend analytics and information that
may never resurface in the inevitable balkanized system that is to be
developed

------
apsec112
Spying on other governments is the NSA's job. The problem is when it starts
spying on ordinary citizens.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Spying on other governments is the NSA's job.

Nevertheless, specific instances of spying on _allied_ governments is often
irritating to the ally involved, and their citizenry.

US citizens are probably less upset about foreign surveillance by the NSA
(even if it is directed at allies), OTOH, US citizens aren't the entire
audience for news.

~~~
gozur88
I guess I could be a little more sympathetic if I thought our allies weren't
spying on us as well. After all the noise the Germans made about US
intelligence services bugging Merkel's phone, it came out that the Germans
were doing the same thing to Hillary Clinton when she visited as Secretary of
State.

~~~
mioelnir
Ally is a strong word. Allies would have honored their agreements and removed
their occupation force.

------
nickpsecurity
They were spying on an allied president that did stuff like this:

[http://www.cracked.com/article_19070_the-5-craziest-
exploits...](http://www.cracked.com/article_19070_the-5-craziest-exploits-
worlds-shadiest-politician.html)

Let's give NSA a slow clap for spying on crooks for once in their allied
SIGINT. That guy makes our politicians look like boy scouts.

------
anonymousDan
For me it will be interesting to see if any details come out about what
pressure he was put under during the euro crisis behind closed doors. Not too
bothered about the NSA spying part in this case. As others have said this is
what they're supposed to be doing.

------
elchief
I think the interesting question is why can't Italy (or Germany) keep foreign
agencies out of their networks? Or can the US not either?

------
tetraverse
"One thing is certain: what happened in those difficult times was intercepted
and transcribed by .. the National Security Agency (NSA), as this interception
and other top-secret documents published today by WikiLeaks and our newspaper
reveal. "

Well it ain't no secret anymore and I wonder at the timing, who at the NSA
leaked the documents and what their motivation is.

------
ZenoArrow
Perhaps it's just me, but I think it'd be more interesting to discover which
high profile figures in government that the NSA hasn't been spying on.

------
chatmasta
Julian Assange has some "big balls." Either he really likes pushing his luck,
or his end game is way bigger than anyone realizes.

He was just starting to curry the favor of the general public. He was the
subject of a prominent biopic, he received a positive resolution from the UN.
He has a lot of supporters, but they're not all fully sold on his philosophy.

Many of his supporters might consider this leak not in the same spirit as the
others. The NSA is doing its job, just like the SIGINT agency of any world
power. Game theory, tit-for-tat, and mutually assured destruction all make
intelligence gathering necessary. As long as one country has SIGINT
capabilities, its competitors must match them, even if only for the purpose of
defending their sovereignty.

As others have said, the NSA spying on foreign public officials is hardly
newsworthy or unexpected. If you believe all SIGINT should cease to exist,
then this should also not be news to you, because you already believe these
SIGINT capabilities exist, by definition of you opposing their existence. So
in no case should this news shock you.

Therefore one has to wonder what Assange's motivation is behind this leak.
Based on its timing, it seems far more likely that his motives are personal
more than philosophical. It furthers no agenda but his own.

(Or perhaps the NSA is behind the whole thing. This is a pretty nice puff
piece for them, and they've gotta be on the offensive finding job applicants
these days.)

~~~
qrendel
Considering they recently chose to completely ignore the UN opinion on his
"arbitrary detention," on top of everything else in the past - false rape
accusations, ignoring his asylum status - I don't see what more he really has
to lose. What are the odds he possibly gets out of this without torture,
assassination, or life in prison?

They've done everything possible to turn him into an actual enemy, rather than
the editor of a site facilitating responsible disclosure by whistleblowers. I
wouldn't be particularly surprised if that affects the manner in which future
leaks are released as well.

~~~
chatmasta
Exactly. He has nothing to lose, so he is doing this now. For himself. The
timing is obviously coordinated around his personal motives, not those of
wikileaks the organization. In fact it's unclear how much of an "organization"
really even exists outside of Assange. So perhaps his personal strategy
remains inextricably linked to the wikileaks strategy, precisely _because_
Julian Assange and wikileaks are effectively a single entity.

~~~
ApplaudPumice
And what are his personal motives? Provide some sources.

~~~
chatmasta
I don't know what they are. But do you think it's a coincidence that after a
dull two years of leaks, this leak occurred in the same month the UK ignored
the UN ruling in his favor?

He's playing his next card. I have no idea what his motives are, do you?

~~~
EdHominem
Try reading your comments out loud.

~~~
dang
Please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN, and please don't conduct
flamewars here.

------
ghostek
For once, NSA spied on right guy. Corruption, minors, drugs, frauds, links to
the Russian gov... there's a lot to be concerned about

~~~
qubex
I'm Italian and I was embarrassed for the whole duration of those terms he
served whilst I was an adult: not because his buffoonery (every country has
people like that) but because collectively the voters of the country had had
no better judgement than to elect this guy. This is why I would deeply
sympathise with any American whom, come 2017, would find him- or herself
represented on the international stage by Trump.

------
ApplaudPumice
Hacker News is too USA-centric. What if Italy spied the USA? Including the
metadata of all citizens' calls? It's that ok?

~~~
SRSposter
Thing is, Italy is not a world power with dominance in information
technologies and global ambitions.

~~~
ApplaudPumice
Well, the USA should mind its own business and fuck off. Too harsh? Ops. You
spy and start wars in others countries and expect it to be ok?

~~~
adventured
If you want a serious answer based on how things actually work, it's this: the
US Government doesn't expect you to be ok with it. They're not asking your
permission. They do not care if you dislike it. The goal is to have the upper-
hand on specific types of information globally.

~~~
ApplaudPumice
I know. But you can't expect countries and people to be ok with it, just
because the USA wants it. In an ideal world there would be no boundaries or
wars and we would live in peace. But fact is that I don't like being spied by
NSA. And while this may be expected by a government, what pisses really off is
the way HN, eff.org and USA-oriented blogs speak about non USA citizens. From
their point of view we are either terrorists, non-humans or some kind of evil,
deprived of all kind of rights.

From the point of view of democracy the USA is the worse.

------
ilostmykeys
All Seeing Eye. That's the point.

~~~
EasyTiger_
It IS fairly concerning the 'All Seeing Eye' the conspiracy folks warned about
is actually a thing now.

------
exabrial
Under Obama's order. Please, let's make sure we assign credit where it's due.

------
tootie
My only regret is they didn't get him sent to jail.

------
NN88
They SHOULD have

------
jstalin
Strange. Wikileaks never seems to leak anything from other countries, such as
Russia or China.

~~~
jeffwass
The more interesting question is what wikileaks would do if they received some
embarrassing leaks related to Ecuador.

Would they choose not release the leaks, given Ecuador's provision of embassy
asylum to Assange?

------
zakalwe2000
Pope discovered to be Catholic. Now if the NSA had spied on Smokey Bear...

