[rad-green] How the US's CIA and Germany's BND spied on world leaders

*Why are we being told to fear that Huawei might spy on us? These guys have
been doing it for
decades.https://www.dw.com/en/how-the-uss-cia-and-germanys-bnd-spied-on-world-leaders/a-52358527
<https://www.dw.com/en/how-the-uss-cia-and-germanys-bnd-spied-on-world-leaders/a-52358527>Deutsche
Welle           12.02.2020*





*How the US's CIA and Germany's BND spied on world leadersIn 2013, Edward
Snowden exposed the extent of the US's surveillance on global
telecommunications. Starting in the 1970s, Germany's BND and the US's CIA
used a Swiss front company to spy on world leaders for decades.By
Christopher Nehring*
[image: Symbolbild | Geheimdienst (imago/bonn-sequenz)]
<https://www.dw.com/en/how-the-uss-cia-and-germanys-bnd-spied-on-world-leaders/a-52358527#>

In Munich in 1970, representatives of Germany's Federal Intelligence
Service (BND) and their counterparts in the US's Central Intelligence
Agency signed a top-secret agreement. CIA spies would later say they
considered the operation, called Rubicon by the BND and Minerva in the
United States, the "intelligence coup of the century."

A recent collaboration by the German public broadcaster ZDF, the US's
*Washington
Post* newspaper and Swiss Television has revealed the entire story
<https://www.dw.com/en/report-us-germany-spied-on-countries-for-decades-via-swiss-encryption-firm/a-52344255>.
According to the report, the German and US foreign intelligence services
jointly operated the Swiss company Crypto AG, one of the world's market
leaders in encryption technology, founded by the Swedish inventor Boris
Hagelin.

Beginning in 1970, the BND and CIA rigged encryption machines produced by
Crypto AG so that they could crack communications. More than 120 countries
bought Crypto AG hardware for embassies, administrative offices and
government institutions.

Crypto AG's customers included Iran, Saudi Arabia and countries in South
America and Africa. Only the Soviet Union and China never bought Crypto AG
products.

Not even employees knew that the company was jointly owned by the
international intelligence agencies. The BND covered up its involvement by
using Siemens for Crypto AG's technical and business support and enlisting
a law firm in Lichtenstein to register its ownership. The spy agencies
shared the profits — in 1975 alone, they did over 51 million Swiss francs
in sales, the equivalent of about $19 million at the time. BND agents
reportedly handed their CIA counterparts their share of the proceeds in
cash at top-secret meetings in underground garages.

One day after a bomb killed three people and injured more than 200 at West
Berlin's La Belle discotheque in 1986, President Ronald Reagan said the
United States had irrefutable proof that Libya was behind it. He owed that
information to intercepted communications from the Libyan Embassy in East
Berlin.

When the United States invaded Panama in 1989, officials knew that Manuel
Noriega was hiding out at the Vatican's embassy in Panama City. The
Vatican, too, relied on Crypto machines.

Torture and coups

The BND and CIA also knew about the torture and murder carried out by
dictatorships in South America. They knew when coups were planned and
massacres were committed. It is unclear whether this sort of information
was ever passed on to Germany's government or the White House.

In 1981, when the United Kingdom fought Argentina in the Falklands War, the
BND and CIA passed on communications intercepted from Argentina to Britain.
NATO partners such as Italy, Spain and Ireland were also monitored as part
of the operation.

Hans Bühler, a Crypto AG salesman and German citizen, was arrested for
espionage in Iran in 1992. He was innocent, but authorities held him
prisoner for almost a year. Under pressure from Germany's government, the
BND ended its participation in the operation in 1993. The BND sold its 50%
stake in Crypto AG to the CIA, which finally dissolved the company in 2018.
By then, the company had long ceased to be a market leader, and the US spy
agencies were already working with digital communication providers.

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