Dropmire is a surveillance program by the United States'

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collect ...

(NSA) aimed at surveillance of foreign embassies and diplomatic staff, including those of

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

allies. The program's existence was revealed in June 2013 by

whistleblower A whistleblower (also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower) is a person, often an employee, who reveals information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent. Whi ...

Edward Snowden in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' newspaper. The report reveals that at least 38 foreign

embassies A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase usually deno ...

were under surveillance, some of them as far back as 2007. Earlier in June 2013, ''The Guardian'' had reported that the NSA spied on diplomats during the

2009 G-20 London Summit The 2009 G20 London Summit was the second meeting of the G20 heads of government/heads of state, which was held in London on 2 April 2009 at the ExCeL Exhibition Centre to discuss financial markets and the world economy. It followed the first ...

, but no precise program name was revealed at the time. Diplomatic spying by the United States had been revealed as far back as 2010, when it was revealed that US agencies had spied on the

Secretary-General of the United Nations The secretary-general of the United Nations (UNSG or SG) is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations and head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the six principal organs of the United Nations. The role of the secretary-g ...

, Ban Ki-moon – at the time, it was not known that this had been done as part of a systematic program.WikiLeaks cables: Hillary Clinton meets Ban Ki-moon after spying revelations
''

'', 2 Dec 2010. Retrieved Jul 2013.

References

2013 scandals American secret government programs Counterterrorism in the United States Espionage Human rights Intelligence agency programmes revealed by Edward Snowden Mass surveillance Obama administration controversies National Security Agency operations Privacy of telecommunications Privacy in the United States Surveillance Surveillance scandals United States national security policy War on terror {{Globalization-stub

See also

References