Steven Petrov
The Paw Print
“All spy agencies use the same methods”
The alleged eavesdrop and spying done by the National Security Agency on certain European leaders and EU citizens continues to be an unfolding issue. It has led to an online protection law established by the EU for its citizens, which obligates some of the biggest multinational US corporations that deal with people’s personal information like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft to pay 100 million euros or 5% of the company’s annual sales as a fine, in case of a misuse or inability to store that information securely.
This week the debate has further developed with the NSA officially answering these accusations. The way the US agency responded shows that it believes that the best defense is offense. The NSA’s chief director, General Keith Alexander, sent a clear message to the European authorities, medias and agencies stating that, “all spy and intelligence agencies are equally bad and use the exact same methods.” The general delivered a speech in front of Congress on the subject, and later on BBC focused entirely on the statement Alexander made that all the European accusations about the eavesdrop, surveillance, spying etc. are absolutely untrue.
Keith’s reasoning comes from the fact that all of the accusations are based on the things that European medias see but can’t interpret. All they have are photographs of a software project for data collecting, but neither the media nor the ex-agent Edward Snowden, can actually interpret and describe what they are seeing, says the NSA’s chief director.
In addition to his comments, the US Army general also says that all of the information Snowden stole and gave to the European agencies and medias was not EU citizens’ personal information but rather valuable information, which US and all of its NATO alliances have collected throughout the years for military defense purposes and multiple military operations.
The NSA’s stand on the cell phone eavesdrop on the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, was exceedingly vague. Keith Alexander gave a common explanation that the eavesdrop was done for “national security” purposes.
What’s Been Said…