Reply #8: US takes bugging at the UN to 'new levels'(Condi mentioned in2003)

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US takes bugging at the UN to 'new levels'
Mar 5, 2003

The United States came under fire on Monday over news reports that key United Nations diplomats in the Security Council were under high-intensity surveillance by US intelligence agencies. According to a report in the British Observer newspaper, the US is conducting a secret "dirty tricks" campaign against diplomats from countries that have remained non-committal on how they will vote on a proposed US-British resolution legitimizing a war on Iraq. The campaign has been directed mostly at delegates from six non-permanent members in the Security Council: Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Mexico, Guinea and Pakistan.

"We knew all along that senior UN officials and diplomats were under constant surveillance," Jim Paul of the New York-based Global Policy Forum, told Inter Press Service. "But the existing surveillance has raised bugging to new levels," he added.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer refused to offer any comments on the story at a news briefing in Washington. The newspaper quoted a memo from the National Security Agency (NSA) in Washington advising senior US intelligence officials to ferret out information not only on how delegates would vote on a second resolution but to seek out "negotiating positions" and "alliances" among Security Council members. The plan includes interception of email messages and bugging home and office telephones of diplomats whose countries are represented in the Security Council. "The existence of the surveillance operation, understood to have been requested by President George W Bush's National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, is deeply embarrassing to the Americans in the middle of their efforts to win over the undecided delegations," the Observer noted.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EC05Ak01.html