http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nsa-hacked-email-account-of-mexican-president-a-928817.html
By Jens Glüsing, Laura Poitras, Marcel Rosenbach and Holger Stark
Spiegel.de
October 20, 2013
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.
[...]
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