Spying on United Nations leaders by United States diplomats
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Spying on United Nations leaders by United States diplomats was confirmed by a 2009 confidential directive from the
United States Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other n ...
directly instructing US diplomats to
spy Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...
on top officials of the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
. The intelligence information to be gathered included biometric information and passwords and other authentication keys used in official communications. The directives were revealed as part of the
United States diplomatic cables leak The United States diplomatic cables leak, widely known as Cablegate, began on Sunday, 28 November 2010 when WikiLeaks began releasing classified cables that had been sent to the U.S. State Department by 274 of its consulates, embassies, and ...
in late 2010. While spying by the US on the UN was not new, the directive's aggressive goals for information gathering and desire for use of regular diplomats in the gathering was seen by some as new, and caused a strain in relations between the US and UN. The former British ambassador to the United States, said that it would be a "serious misinterpretation" to conclude that the cables were asking diplomats to spy, calling it part of the vast bureaucratic laundry list dumped on diplomats.


The directive

In July 2009, a confidential cable originating from the
United States Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other n ...
ordered US diplomats to
spy Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...
on
Ban Ki-moon Ban Ki-moon (; ; born 13 June 1944) is a South Korean politician and diplomat who served as the eighth secretary-general of the United Nations between 2007 and 2016. Prior to his appointment as secretary-general, Ban was his country's Minister ...
,
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 ...
, and other top UN officials. The intelligence information the diplomats were ordered to gather included biometric information (which apparently included DNA, fingerprints, and iris scans), passwords, and personal
encryption key A key in cryptography is a piece of information, usually a string of numbers or letters that are stored in a file, which, when processed through a cryptographic algorithm, can encode or decode cryptographic data. Based on the used method, the key c ...
s used in private and commercial networks for official communications. It also included Internet and intranet usernames, e-mail addresses, web site URLs useful for identification, credit card numbers, frequent flier account numbers, and work schedules. The targeted
human intelligence Human intelligence is the intellectual capability of humans, which is marked by complex cognitive feats and high levels of motivation and self-awareness. High intelligence is associated with better outcomes in life. Through intelligence, humans ...
was requested in a process known as the National Humint Collection Directive, and was aimed at foreign diplomats of US allies as well. The news of the cable and directive was revealed by website
WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is an international Nonprofit organization, non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous Source (journalism), sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activism, Internet acti ...
on 28 November 2010, as part of the overall
United States diplomatic cables leak The United States diplomatic cables leak, widely known as Cablegate, began on Sunday, 28 November 2010 when WikiLeaks began releasing classified cables that had been sent to the U.S. State Department by 274 of its consulates, embassies, and ...
. The disclosed cables on the more aggressive intelligence gathering went back to 2008 when they went out under
Condoleezza Rice Condoleezza Rice ( ; born November 14, 1954) is an American diplomat and political scientist who is the current director of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. A member of the Republican Party, she previously served as the 66th Uni ...
's name during her tenure as Secretary of State and continued to go out under
US Secretary of State The United States secretary of state is a member of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States and the head of the U.S. Department of State. The office holder is one of the highest ranking members of the president's Ca ...
Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...
's name. US State Department spokesman
Philip J. Crowley Philip J. "P.J." Crowley (born July 28, 1951) is the former United States Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, having been sworn into office on May 26, 2009. He resigned on March 13, 2011, following comments he made about the treatmen ...
stated that Clinton had not drafted the directive and that the Secretary of State's name is systematically attached to the bottom of cables originating from Washington. Further leaked material revealed that the guidance in the cables was actually written by the
Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
before being sent out under Clinton's name, as the CIA cannot directly instruct State Department personnel. Specifically, the effort came from the
National Clandestine Service The Directorate of Operations (DO), less formally called the Clandestine Service,Central Intelligence AgencyCareers & Internships Retrieved: July 9, 2015. is a component of the US Central Intelligence Agency. It was known as the ''Directorate o ...
, a CIA service formed in the years following the
September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...
with the goal of better coordinating human intelligence activities. According to former US officials, the instructions given in these cables may have been largely ignored by American diplomats as ill-advised.


Breach of international laws

The UN had previously declared that spying on the secretary-general was illegal, as a breach of the 1946 UN convention. Peter Kemp, Solicitor of the
Supreme Court of New South Wales The Supreme Court of New South Wales is the highest state court of the Australian State of New South Wales. It has unlimited jurisdiction within the state in civil matters, and hears the most serious criminal matters. Whilst the Supreme Court i ...
, and international-law professor
Ben Saul Ben Saul is the current Challis Professor of International Law at the University of Sydney and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow. He has appeared as an advocate in international, regional and national courts outside Australia, and he ...
, publicly asked
Julia Gillard Julia Eileen Gillard (born 29 September 1961) is an Australian former politician who served as the 27th prime minister of Australia from 2010 to 2013, holding office as leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). She is the first and only ...
,
Prime Minister of Australia The prime minister of Australia is the head of government of the Commonwealth of Australia. The prime minister heads the executive branch of the Australian Government, federal government of Australia and is also accountable to Parliament of A ...
, to complain "to the U.S. about both Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton being in major breach of International law ie UN Covenants, by making orders to spy on UN personnel, including the Secretary General, to include theft of their credit card details and communication passwords. Perhaps the Attorney General should investigate this clear
prima facie ''Prima facie'' (; ) is a Latin expression meaning ''at first sight'' or ''based on first impression''. The literal translation would be 'at first face' or 'at first appearance', from the feminine forms of ''primus'' ('first') and ''facies'' (' ...
evidence of crime (likely against Australian diplomats as well), rather than he attempts to prosecute the messenger of those crimes."
President of Venezuela The president of Venezuela ( es, Presidente de Venezuela), officially known as the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, Presidente de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is the head of state and head of government in Ven ...
Hugo Chávez Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (; 28 July 1954 – 5 March 2013) was a Venezuelan politician who was president of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013, except for a brief period in 2002. Chávez was also leader of the Fifth Republ ...
said that Clinton should resign.


International reactions

The practice of the US and the State Department gathering intelligence on the UN was not new. Former UN diplomats commented that UN officials already work under the assumption that they are spied on and are used to getting around it, but that it was the responsibility of intelligence agencies, not other diplomats. ''The Guardian'' wrote that the directive "appears to blur the line between diplomacy and spying". Staff at the UN privately expressed unhappiness at the apparent scale of the intelligence-gathering operation, and the UN sought an official explanation from the US. On 1 December, Clinton and Ban met at a summit of the
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is the world's largest regional security-oriented intergovernmental organization with observer status at the United Nations. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, prom ...
in
Astana Astana, previously known as Akmolinsk, Tselinograd, Akmola, and most recently Nur-Sultan, is the capital city of Kazakhstan. The city lies on the banks of the Ishim (river), Ishim River in the north-central part of Kazakhstan, within the Akmo ...
,
Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
, where Clinton was doing damage control with world leaders regarding the embarrassing contents of the State Department cables overall. In an attempt to repair the strain for the Humint revelations, Clinton expressed regret for the disclosures, but did not make an apology per se. A UN statement relayed that Ban thanked Clinton "for clarifying the matter and for expressing her concern about the difficulties created." Germany
Ministry of the Interior An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs. Lists of current ministries of internal affairs Named "ministry" * Ministry ...
Thomas de Maizière Karl Ernst Thomas de Maizière (; born 21 January 1954) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who served as Federal Minister of the Interior from 2009 to 2011 and 2013 to 2018, as well as Federal Minister of Defence f ...
said he was "astounded" by the order, though he expressed regret that Wikileaks activity was being focused on "transparent and open Western democracies" instead of "the world's dictatorships and oppressive regimes" and thus lacked "genuine informative purpose". Former US official Carl Ford called the order "unprecedented", although "other U.S. diplomats said such headquarters directives were a longtime and routine practice", albeit one which was "not always fully obeyed." ''The Guardian'' quoted Carne Ross, "a former British diplomat at the UN who now runs the Independent Diplomat advisory group", as saying that "The fact that the US is spying on the UN can't be a surprise. Lots of countries do it, including our own." Christopher Meyer, a former British ambassador to the United States, said that it would be a "serious misinterpretation" to conclude that the cables were asking diplomats to spy, adding that "In reality this is the usual vast bureaucratic laundry list dumped by the US intelligence establishment on diplomats around the world asking them to do a number of things".


See also

*
Crypto AG Crypto AG was a Swiss company specialising in communications and information security founded by Boris Hagelin in 1952. The company was secretly purchased for US $5.75 million and jointly owned by the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) a ...
, company owned by U.S. intel purportedly to spy on other countries *
Dropmire Dropmire is a surveillance program by the United States' National Security Agency (NSA) aimed at surveillance of foreign embassies and diplomatic staff, including those of NATO allies. The program's existence was revealed in June 2013 by whistleb ...
* Operation Dunhammer, leaked instance of U.S. spying on European leaders *
German Parliamentary Committee investigation of the NSA spying scandal The German Parliamentary Committee investigation of the NSA spying scandal (official title: ''1. Untersuchungsausschuss „NSA“'') was started on March 20, 2014, by the German Parliament in order to investigate the extent and background of fore ...


References


External links


The original cable
at ''
WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is an international Nonprofit organization, non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous Source (journalism), sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activism, Internet acti ...
''
Archived
on 24 April 2012. * * {{WikiLeaks Espionage in the United States United States diplomatic cables leak 2010s in mass media Espionage scandals and incidents Geopolitical rivalry Hillary Clinton United States and the United Nations United States government secrecy