The Guardian has uncovered secret documents showing that the U.S. is intercepting emails and phone calls from U.N. delegates in an effort to garner support for their war. Obviously, this is a huge story, one that you would expect to see in every single newspaper. But it's not, at least not in the U.S.
In a transcript of a White House press conference, Ari Fleischer refuses to give any information.
Q: May I also ask you about a report in The Observer newspaper in London, of a memo purported to be from the NSA -- an email message from a man who actually works at the NSA they established -- in which he describes a surge in surveillance of U.N. Security Council members to see what these nations are thinking about an Iraq vote. What's your response?
MR. FLEISCHER: Terry, as a matter of long-standing policy, the administration never comments on anything involving any people involved in intelligence. For example, if somebody were to say to me, is Libya an object of American intelligence -- I would never answer that question yes or no. The administration does not answer questions of that nature. We don't answer who does or does not work in the intelligence community. Once you start that, you start getting into process of elimination and we do not do that about any question, about any report, as a blanket matter of policy.
Q: But, then, if you're a Cameroonian diplomat or a French diplomat at the United Nations, because of what you just said, you're going to have to operate on the assumption that the United States is bugging you.
MR. FLEISCHER: No, it's a blanket matter of policy that we do not answer questions of that nature, whether it's true or not true, and I'm not indicating to you whether it is true or not true. It's a blanket matter of approach and policy that predates this administration
It all sounds pretty fishy to me. And a Salon premium article looks into the question of why the U.S. is covering it up. To me, it is amazing that no major US news source has picked this up. It is totally unfathomable. Hopefully this will all unfurl in the coming days/weeks.
03/05/03 5:57 PM
I don't know that its unfathomable. In fact, I wasn't terribly shocked when I read the story. I think that this type of stuff goes on all the time, and has been going on longer than most of us have been around. And I think a lot of countries do it. Does that mean that its right? Hell no, its dirty as hell, but am I shocked that the US would do something like that? No. And, of course the US is not going to comment on it. They never do.