20 October 2013

Fresh NSA Leak on Mexico President Spying

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nsa-hacked-email-account-of-mexican- president-a-928817.html Der Spiegel, 20 October 2013 Fresh Leak on US Spying: NSA Accessed Mexican President's Email By Jens Glüsing, Laura Poitras, Marcel Rosenbach and Holger Stark [Excerpt] The NSA has been systematically eavesdropping on the Mexican government for years. It hacked into the president's public email account and gained deep insight into policymaking and the political system. The news is likely to hurt ties between the US and Mexico. The National Security Agency (NSA) has a division for particularly difficult missions. Called "Tailored Access Operations" (TAO), this department devises special methods for special targets. That category includes surveillance of neighboring Mexico, and in May 2010, the division reported its mission accomplished. A report classified as "top secret" said: "TAO successfully exploited a key mail server in the Mexican Presidencia domain within the Mexican Presidential network to gain first-ever access to President Felipe Calderon's public email account." According to the NSA, this email domain was also used by cabinet members, and contained "diplomatic, economic and leadership communications which continue to provide insight into Mexico's political system and internal stability." The president's office, the NSA reported, was now "a lucrative source." This operation, dubbed "Flatliquid," is described in a document leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden, which SPIEGEL has now had the opportunity to analyze. The case is likely to cause further strain on relations between Mexico and the United States, which have been tense since Brazilian television network TV Globo revealed in September that the NSA monitored then-presidential candidate Enrique Peña Nieto and others around him in the summer of 2012. Peña Nieto, now Mexico's president, summoned the US ambassador in the wake of that news, but confined his reaction to demanding an investigation into the matter. Now, though, the revelation that the NSA has systematically infiltrated an entire computer network is likely to trigger deeper controversy, especially since the NSA's snooping took place during the term of Peña Nieto's predecessor Felipe Calderón, a leader who worked more closely with Washington than any other Mexican president before him. [More] _____ Cryptome: This spying was apparently done from the NSA's Medina Regional SIGINT Operations Center (MRSOC), Lackland Air Force Base Annex, San Antonio, TX (formerly Medina Regional SIGINT Operations Center): http://cryptome.org/2012-info/nsa-mrsoc-2012/nsa-mrsoc-2012.htm http://cryptome.org/mrsoc.pdf