The US infiltrated a government e-mail server to eavesdrop on former president Felipe Calderon -- "a lucrative source" of information, according to classified documents reviewed by Der Spiegel.
The National Security Agency eavesdropped on the Mexico
government by systematically infiltrating an e-mail server and hacking the
e-mail account of a former Mexico president, according to a classified
documents reviewed by Der Spiegel.
The e-mail domain, which was also used by other members of
Mexico's cabinet, contained "diplomatic, economic and leadership
communications which continue to provide insight into Mexico's political system
and internal stability," according to a 2010 report provided to the German
newspaper by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The hack of former president
Felipe Calderon's e-mail was conducted by an agency department called Tailored
Access Operations and proved to be "a lucrative source" of
information, the newspaper said the documents revealed.
During two weeks during the summer of 2012, the foreign
surveillance agency reviewed the cell phone communications of then-presidential
candidate Enrique Peña Nieto and "nine of his close associates,"
according to a internal agency presentation reviewed by the newspaper. Software
was used to identify the candidate's most relevant contacts, which were also
singled out for surveillance.
In all, the agency intercepted 85,489 text messages, some of
which were sent by Peña Nieto, who is Mexico's current president. The process
"might find a needle in a haystack," the analysts noted, adding that
it could be done "in a repeatable and efficient way."
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The NSA declined to comment on the specific allegations
included in the report.
"We are not going to comment publicly on every specific
alleged intelligence activity, and as a matter of policy we have made clear
that the United States gathers foreign intelligence of the type gathered by all
nations," the NSA said in a statement Sunday. "As the president said
in his speech at the U.N. General Assembly, we've begun to review the way that
we gather intelligence, so that we properly balance the legitimate security
concerns of our citizens and allies with the privacy concerns that all people
share."
President Obama, who has defended the NSA's surveillance
programs as a necessary tool to confront terrorism, outlined four initiatives
in August to address concerns among Americans and foreigners regarding the
legality of the agency's activities. Among those initiatives are
"appropriate reforms" to the Patriot Act and a focus on increasing
the public's confidence in the oversight conducted by the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court, which provides judicial review of intelligence activities.
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