The NSA’s data base contains information obtained during the surveillance of over a hundred world leaders, new leaks by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed.
Der Spiegel has looked through a top secret presentation by NSA's
Center for Content Extraction, which is responsible for automated
analysis of all types of text data.
According to the document, the leaders of 122 states were
among the high-ranked targets of the US intelligence.
However, only 12 names were revealed by the German journalists in
the publication as an example.
With the heads of state arranged alphabetically by first name,
the list begins with ‘A’ as in Abdullah Badawi, the former
Malaysian prime minister.
He’s followed by Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, who
appears so high due to being mentioned under his alias, Abu
Mazin.
The catalogue of world leaders under surveillance goes on with
the heads of Peru, Somalia, Guatemala and Colombia right up to
Aleksander Lukashenko of Belarus.
The list is completed by Yulia Tymoshenko at No.122, who used to
be Ukrainian prime minister from February-September 2005 and from
December 2007 till March 2010.
Merkel appears on the document between former Mali president,
Amadou Toumani Toure, and Syrian leader, Bashar Assad.
The document indicates that the German chancellor has been
included in the so-called Target Knowledge Database (TKB), which
includes “complete profiles” of the individuals under
surveillance.
The automated name recognition system, Nymrod, which deals with
transcripts of intercepted fax, voice and computer-to-computer
communications, has provided around 300 citations for Merkel
alone, Der Spiegel wrote.
The authors of the NSA presentation especially stressed the
effectiveness of the automated capture, with manual maintenance
of high-ranking targets database being “a slow and
painstaking process”.
Der Spiegel were also shown a weekly report from the Special
Sources Operations (SSO) division, which proves that the NSA had
received a court order to spy on Merkel.
According to the paper, FISA, the special court responsible for
intelligence agency requests, provided the NSA with authorization
to monitor “Germany” on March 7, 2013.
The new Snowden leaks are significant for Germany as they prove
that Chancellor Merkel was an official target for surveillance by
the US.
The office of German Federal Public Prosecutor, Harald Range,
still hasn’t made up its mind over suing the National Security
Agency.
The allegations that the NSA monitored Merkel’s mobile phone and
conducted mass surveillance on the communications of millions of
Germans are currently under review by the prosecutors.