The British government has found itself embroiled in an international scandal today following the leaking of GCHQ documents which bragged of the British spy agency’s pervasive interception of private messages by diplomats at the 2009 G20 summit.
Officials from several nations have lashed the invasion of privacy, with the delegates most targeted, Russian, Turkish and South African, issuing statements expressing serious concern about the breech of diplomatic trust.
The GCHQ documents, leaked to the Guardian over the weekend, bragged about the “success” of eavesdropping against officials, including Turkey’s Finance Minister and Russia’s then-President Dmitry Medvedev.
It went on to claim that its surveillance of the diplomats at the summit was so pervasive that they were able to provide copies of messages to the British delegation in near real-time. The documents detailed breaking into RIMM Blackberry devices, and will likely add to the concerns about the insecurity of such devices in the face of government surveillance, not just for diplomats but for everybody else.
British Foreign Office officials confirmed receiving complaints about the surveillance today, but have declined any other comments, insisting it was a matter of “intelligence” and would be kept secret.
You can not have 100% safety and 100% security.., that implies to every citizen of this world even other governments…., English and the USA government exempted.
Kiss your democracy and hang it on the balcony to dry…, welcome the Neo fascism hand in hand with a militarism regime watching the falsified democracy that you been enjoying for…… No time at all.
The FedGov uses Blackberry devices, so Research in Motion (RIM) has built backdoor access into their devices. Any technology developed by the big US tech firms is compromised in this way. The fact that the FedGov and its lackeys see fit to breach diplomatic confidentiality, while not at all surprising, is yet another example of the the reckless disregard they have for any legal restraint.