US President Barack Obama has “recently ordered” the National Security Agency to stop tapping the UN headquarters in New York amid the review of electronic surveillance programs, Reuters reported, citing official sources.
“The United States is not conducting electronic surveillance
targeting the United Nations headquarters in New York,” a
senior Obama administration official told Reuters, speaking on
condition of anonymity.
Another official told the news agency that the decision was made
within the last few weeks after the president’s aides said in
briefings that the White House no longer wanted to conduct
certain monitoring of UN targets.
The official could not elaborate on the extent of past
surveillance and did not say whether the monitoring of UN
diplomats elsewhere in the world is continuing, as such programs
are highly classified.
It is understood that the UN headquarters and diplomatic missions
have for decades been the target of aggressive spying, including
that of the NSA, but details of such surveillance at the present
time are scarce.
However, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden shed more light on
the practice, as he leaked documents detailing the agency’s
recent spying efforts. Snowden’s files, obtained by Der Spiegel,
revealed in August that the NSA bugged more than 80 embassies and
consulates under a program called the “Special Collection
Service,” which has been described as “intensive and well
organized” as well as having “little or nothing to do with
warding off terrorists.”
In New York, the surveillance was said to have included tapping
into UN video conference calls, which the NSA managed to decode
in the summer of 2012.
“The data traffic gives us internal video teleconferences of
the United Nations (yay!),” read one of the documents,
boasting that the number of communications that were decoded rose
from 12 to 458 in just three weeks following successful
encryption cracking by the agency.
Apart from the UN headquarters, the European Union and
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) delegations were also
bugged, according to the files.
The NSA declined to comment on the Tuesday report, and spokesmen
for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon did not immediately respond
to a request for comment, Reuters reported.
Meanwhile, the White House has said it is undertaking a broad review of US intelligence
gathering programs to determine whether they are appropriate.
“The Administration’s review is ongoing so I’m not in a
position to discuss the details or the outcomes, but we have
already made some decisions through this process and expect to
make more as we continue,” NSA spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden
said in a late Monday statement.
Snowden’s leaks said that the agency has for years eavesdropped
on foreign leaders, including those of allied countries. The
allegations have been confirmed by current and former official
sources familiar with NSA practices, according to Reuters.
Such covert activities have been repeatedly briefed to US
congressional intelligence committees, at least in outline, the
news agency added.