Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2013-10-31
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| A rally in Washington DC on Oct. 26, 2013 to protest the National Security Agency's spying activities. (Photo/Xinhua) |
A
classified document leaked to German news magazine Der Spiegel has indicated
that the US government's spying activities extend to major cities in the
Greater China region including Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Hong Kong and
Taipei.
According
to the "top secret" 2010 document, the CIA and the National Security
Agency operate a black budget program known as the Special Collection Service
(SCS), which is responsible for inserting surveillance equipment in foreign
embassies, communications centers and other foreign government installations.
The SCS teams are said to work predominantly undercover in shielded areas of
the American embassy and consulate where they are granted certain immunities as
foreign diplomats.
The
document reveals the existence of more than 80 SCS branches around the world
specializing in spying on communications between government departments of
foreign countries, including in major European cities such as Paris, Rome,
Frankfurt and Geneva, as well as key locations in Asia such as Beijing,
Shanghai, Chengdu, Hong Kong and Taipei. American allies Japan and South Korea
are not on the list.
Among the
accusations leveled against the US government by Der Spiegel is that the NSA
has an SCS branch in Berlin, which has been monitoring the mobile phone of
Chancellor Angela Merkel since 2002. The NSA allegedly said in the document
that the exposure of the "not legally registered spying branch" lead
to "grave damage for the relations of the United States to another
government."
President
Obama apologized to Merkel when she called him on Wednesday seeking
clarification on the matter and said he would have stopped it had he known it
was happening, Der Spiegel reported.
The White
House indicated on Tuesday that it would at least support some of the
congressional efforts to rein in the NSA's surveillance programs and was
already in the process of amending US intelligence gathering activities
following an internal review stemming from the Snowden scandal.
NSA
director Keith Alexander, however, launched a stern defense of the agency's
current programs at a congressional hearing, saying that the NSA would prefer
to "take the beatings" from the public and media "than to give
up a program that would result in this nation being attacked."
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