Docs Show NSA Bugged UN, European Union

Special Collection Service Has Nothing to Do With Terrorism

A new round of documents from the Edward Snowden leaks emerged today on Der Spiegel’s German-language site, revealing the scope of NSA bugging operations against allies and international organizations.

Bugging operations targeted the United Nations and its video conferencing system, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the European Union, part of what is dubbed the “Special Collection Service.”

The SCS appears to pretty much exclusively target government and quasi-government agencies, and has “little or nothing to do with warding off terrorists,” according to those familiar with it.

As more and more information comes out, the NSA surveillance is revealed to be targeting virtually everyone, with a large amount of the programs’ efforts centered on espionage against allies and corporations, as well as individual American citizens.

The administration keeps defending the programs, mostly through overt lies about things that have already been discovered, and occasionally by making vague references to “threats” the programs have uncovered. As the program is revealed to be larger and larger, its trivial accomplishments seem less and less relevant, and the global surveillance of anybody and everybody is more and more outrageous.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.