“constant friends and reliable allies”

[Mikki11]

According to recent reports of The Financial Times it has been alleged that our “constant friends and reliable allies” routinely spied on the private life (!) of our ex-premier Tony Blair, who was given the code name “Anchory” as his phone calls were routinely listened into and recorded by US National Security Agency (NSA/CSS). The scandalous claim has been made by a former NSA communications intercept operator, David Murfee Faulk, who at that time worked at a listening post in Fort Gordon, st. Georgia. He told American TV network ABC News that he had access to an intelligence data base, where he saw “the file on former British prime minister, T. Blair, in 2006”.
And now even our security officials acknowledge that “the US intercepts likely have included and include (!) phone calls and e-mail traffic from targets inside this country”! How can we reckon Americans as our “historic allies” after it? There is no secret that collecting information on foreign leaders is a legal and common practice of intelligence agencies around the world. But how could the USA do it after America had pledged not to snoop on each others’ leaders under a long-standing agreement, signed between us in 1966!
I tell you more! As it has turned out US spies are not only tapping the telephones of our “unordinary citizens”, but also creating and keeping under their constant control such radical organizations as, for example, The British National Party (BNP), known as a far-right and whites only political party in the UK! Our intelligence service has recently managed to neutralize its poisonous effect to our political life. But in order to prevent public scandals with our American friends, British security agents had to cut corners, signing off security leak (I mean list of BNP members) in Internet.
And till when will it take place in our relations with Americans? It is high time to put an end such their tricks with us, isn’t it?

[bnpneedsyou]

At the start i thought you were onto something interesting, but it soon turned into a wacky story. Is this your opinion about the BNP being controlled by the USA?, Or is it true. If so do you have facts to prove it?.

I dont mind conspiracy thoeries infact i quiet like them, but this one is plain stupid. If you hadnt mentioned the BNP i would have been very interested in this. Ow well.

[Midas]

At the start i thought you were onto something interesting, but it soon turned into a wacky story. Is this your opinion about the BNP being controlled by the USA?, Or is it true. If so do you have facts to prove it?....

I didn't interpret Mikki's remark that way, rather the USA almost certainly keeps very close tabs on what goes on politically in the UK, not that they actually 'controlled' it. Having said that, it wouldn't surprise me one iota if it were found that the leak of BNP members had been politically inspired, but we're hardly likely to know that.

On the wider issue of eavesdropping, the 1966 agreement notwithstanding it's been widely known since the early 1990s that the USA, or particularly their NSA, monitored all communications going in and out of the UK - and every other country it must be said - through their 'Echelon' system. When approval was given for the US monitoring station at Menwith Hill to be opened it was implicit in that agreement that all communications channels were likely to be intercepted.

If it was up to me, I'd have that closed down tomorrow; the huge invasion of privacy of British citizens that occurs because of it, to me far outweighs the absolutely minute amount of genuinely useful intelligence that's gathered, most of which could be obtained in other ways anyway.

In the past there have been at least two authenticated instances of serious abuse when commercial communications were being monitored. I can't recall the names of the companies concerned, but both involved major contracts where US companies had been under-bid by EU companies. The NSA monitored the communications and passed details of the final bids to other US contractors who submitted cheaper quotes with hours to spare.

I know we'll never be able to stop this, but we don't have to hand copies of all our communications to other nations on a plate! But try telling that to our invasion-of-privacy-mad Home Secretary.