Monday, February 06, 2006
John Bolton, 21st Century Waterburglar?
From DemocracyNow
The Greek Watergate: Phones Tapped of Political & Military Elite
A major spy scandal has also erupted in Greece where it has been uncovered that the mobile phones of the country's entire political and military elite were tapped ahead of the Olympic Games in Athens two years ago. Among those targeted were the Foreign, Defense and Public Order Ministers, as well as the Prime Minister and the leadership of the armed forces. Others included civil rights activists, the head of the 'stop the war' coalition, journalists and Arabs based in Athens. The Greek government says it is unclear who carried out the eavesdropping. According to the Observer of London, hi-tech software was put in place at the telephone company Vodafone that enabled phone conversations to be diverted to a set of 14 'shadow' mobile phones which then relayed them to a recording system. Officials say the calls were intercepted on mobile phones picked up by antennae in an area close to the US embassy. The Greek government has launched a judicial investigation but has denied U.S. agents were behind the plot. Vodafone reported the eavesdropping to the Greek government last March but before doing so the company had shut down the system making it impossible for investigators to determine who was carrying out the spying.
Supposedly an embassy number was also tapped.
Presumably, the US was spying on the Greek government and the anti-war movement and just got caught.
Comments:
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Consider the even more terrifying possibility that Vodaphone was doing this on its own, without reference to the US government.
The Corporatocracy does a lot of things that clearly aren't in the interests of the US - in fact, they now seem to exist above and beyond all governments as an independent entity that runs the world. Why wouldn't they have their own intel?
The Corporatocracy does a lot of things that clearly aren't in the interests of the US - in fact, they now seem to exist above and beyond all governments as an independent entity that runs the world. Why wouldn't they have their own intel?
This is an extremely interesting possibility, Avedon. Thanks for raising it. Indeed, the mass wiretapping pre-Nixon was done by communications companies.
I start the inquiry by asking who would benefit from an action. Sometimes motives are not obvious, but often they are. Who would wiretap (a) the US embassy, (b) the Greek Ministry of Defense, and (c) peace activists? I don't see a commercial motive in this.
If the USG did it, why tap their own embassy? Did they suspect their staff? But that tap would be even harder to explain if a faction of the Greek government did it, perhaps to seize power. Suppose that Al Qaida did it (unlikely they could have penetrated Vodafone that thoroughly, but possible). Then the embassy and Greek government taps make sense. But the peace activists?
And Vodafone? What on earth could they have been after?
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I start the inquiry by asking who would benefit from an action. Sometimes motives are not obvious, but often they are. Who would wiretap (a) the US embassy, (b) the Greek Ministry of Defense, and (c) peace activists? I don't see a commercial motive in this.
If the USG did it, why tap their own embassy? Did they suspect their staff? But that tap would be even harder to explain if a faction of the Greek government did it, perhaps to seize power. Suppose that Al Qaida did it (unlikely they could have penetrated Vodafone that thoroughly, but possible). Then the embassy and Greek government taps make sense. But the peace activists?
And Vodafone? What on earth could they have been after?
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