Topic: NSA conducting widespread economic and industrial espionage against France (Read 678 times)

Anyone here believes espionage from the NSA is only towards France? I believe the US is spying on every country on Earth. They are supposedly allies, but I guess very few people trusts the French government. My French friends certainly don't.

WikiLeaks publishes today, 4 July at 08:00 BRT, a top secret US National Security Agency target list of 29 key Brazilian government phone numbers that were selected for intensive interception. The publication proves that not only President Dilma Rousseff was targeted but also her assistant, her secretary, her chief of staff, her Palace office and even the phone in her Presidential jet. The US targeted not only those closest to the President, but waged an economic espionage campaign against Brazil, spying on those responsible for managing Brazil's economy, including the head of its Central Bank. The US also extensively targeted Brazil's diplomacy, targeting the phones of its Foreign Minister and its ambassadors to Germany, France, the EU, the US and Geneva.

The economic targets within Brazil's government include its key Finance Ministers and even a head at the Brazilian Central Bank. Cabinet Minister Nelson Henrique Barbosa Filho, who served as Executive Secretary at Brazil's Ministry of Finance from 2011 to 2013 and who is now Minister of Planning, Budget and Management is on the target list, as is Antonio Palocci, Minister of Finance under former President Lula and formerly Dilma's Chief of Staff.

Anyone here believes espionage from the NSA is only towards France? I believe the US is spying on every country on Earth. They are supposedly allies, but I guess very few people trusts the French government. My French friends certainly don't.

This old news. It made US headlines in 2012. And yeah, the US is spying every country they deem relevant to the global conversation on anything. That said, so is every other developed country (except maybe Canada.) It's not fair to point the finger at the US, the only difference between them and other major countries is that they got CAUGHT!

Have you ever listened to anyone else's conversation without them knowing about it? Maybe in the office, at school, at a restaurant, on the train? If so you're just as guilty of spying...cause that's really what's happening.

I believe the US and other country's should tell their citizens when and how they'll be spying on them, Snowden's release helped the US. Positive action (for the People) came about from it.

The American National Security Agency has been engaged in widespread economic and industrial espionage against France through eavesdropping and spying on economy ministers, senior civil servants and a range of French businesses, Mediapart can reveal. Five secret reports of eavesdropped telephone conversations obtained by WikiLeaks, who are working in cooperation with Mediapart and Libération, show that the conversations of two formers ministers of the economy in the French government, François Baroin and Pierre Moscovici were listened to by American spies in 2012.

A senior figure in the French treasury also had his phone calls listened to, as did a socialist Parliamentarian. Another report obtained by WikiLeaks also makes clear that all the available resources of the American secret services have been used to spy on any negotiations relating to “impending French contract proposals or feasibility studies” for exports. The sectors targeted range from information technology and telecommunication to power generation, oil and gas, transport infrastructure, environmental technologies, biotechnology and healthcare. This means that a wide range of large French companies are potential or actual targets of Washington, which effectively uses its huge espionage capability in the service of private American interests.

The economic arm of NSA's spying is less publicised and discussed than its diplomatic and military espionage, but it is arguably the most important work it does. It is this snooping on foreign businesses that justifies the vast resources put at the NSA's disposal. Since Mediapart's revelations last week on American snooping on France, including on the last three French presidents, a number of French officials have spoken off the record. They have told Mediapart that while they may not be surprised by the diplomatic spying, they are worried about the scale of US economic intelligence gathering and its impact on the ability of French companies to win contracts abroad.