The Embassy of France in Washington touted by the NSA

Wasbah and Blackfoot operations: in these two code names, hiding the wiretapping of American National Security Agency (NSA) that have targeted the Embassy of France in Washington and the French representative to the UN activities. The latter are among the 38 "target" monitored by the agency, said on Sunday the Guardian . The British newspaper relies on a document in September 2010 obtained from Edward Snowden, former IT consultant of the NSA . The agency and sniping at embassies and diplomatic missions in each country.
"In addition to traditional and sensitive countries in the Middle East ideological opponents, the target list includes EU missions and embassies of France, Italy and Greece, and a number of allies America, including Japan, Mexico, South Korea, India and Turkey, "wrote the Guardian . The document "describes an extraordinary range of espionage methods used against each of these targets, ranging from microphones hidden in electronic communication equipment to cables or connections to the collection of transmissions using special antennas," adds the British newspaper.

"Targets to attack"

The Guardian also confirms what was revealed Saturday the German weekly Der Spiegel : representations of the European Union have been tapped to Washington and the UN. A monitoring system was installed on a Cryptofax the EU embassy in Washington. The machine is used to send cables back to the Ministries of Foreign Affairs in European capitals, the documents relate to the NSA.

The agency would also interréssée communication systems of the Justus Lipsius building , which houses the European Council in Brussels, where EU governments have offices from which they can secure calls. According to confidential documents cited by the German magazine, Europeans are explicitly designated as "targets to attack." The operation would have aimed to learn more about the divisions between the member countries of the EU.

According to the German weekly, which continued Sunday in its publication of revelations, the United States also intercept some 500 million communications by telephone or Internet, each month in Germany and nearly 50 million in France. "It is reminiscent of the actions between enemies during the Cold War," responds the German Minister of Justice, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger. In Germany, "the European country most watched" by the NSA on this subject is particularly sensitive because of the precedents of the Stasi in the former GDR and the Gestapo in Nazi Germany.