WikiLeaks reveals the NSA spied on Berlusconi and his closest advisors

[MikeWB]

WikiLeaks reveals the NSA spied on Berlusconi and his closest advisors

New top secret documents published today by Julian Assange's organization prove for the first time that the National Security Agency spied on the Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi and his closest collaborators during some of the most difficults years of his government, when it was on the verge of collapse in the midst of an unprecedented economic crisis, "Bunga bunga" scandals, US concerns about Berlusconi's "special relationship" with Russia and the fall of Qaddafi.

A 22 October meeting attended by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and Italian Prime Minister (PM) Silvio Berlusconi was later described by the Italian's personal adviser on international relations, Valentino Valentini, as tense and very harsh towards the Rome government. Merkel and Sarkozy, evidently brooking no excuses with respect to Italy's current predicament, pressured the PM to announce strong, concrete palliatives and then to implement them in order to show that his government is serious about its debt problem. Sarkozy was said to have told Berlusconi that while the latter's claims about the solidity of the Italian banking system may be true in theory, financial institutions there could soon "pop" like the cork in a champagne bottle, that "words are no longer enough", and that Berlusconi must now "make decisions". Also on the 24th, Valentini indicated that EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy had urged Italy to undertake policies aimed at reducing the impression within the EU that the country is weighed down with an enormous debt at a moment in time when it also is struggling with low productivity and showing little dynamism».

It was extensively reported, it fueled conspiracy theories and Berlusconi's most loyal collaborators even requested a public inquiry. But now this top secret interception, dating back to October 2011, published today by WikiLeaks in exclusive collaboration with l'Espresso and Repubblica and a team of international media, reopens the case: what really happened in Italy in that difficult autumn, when our economy was under extreme duress and Berlusconi's sex scandals, from Ruby Rubacuori to the other "bunga bunga girls", were making headlines around the world? What really made Berlusconi's government collapse, paving the way first for Mario Monti's unelected government and later those of Italian PMs Enrico Letta and Matteo Renzi? One thing is certain: what happened in those difficult times was intercepted and transcribed by the most powerful intelligence agency in the world: the National Security Agency (NSA), as this interception and other t op-secret documents published today by WikiLeaks and our newspaper reveal.


According to these files, Silvio Berlusconi, his trusted personal advisor Valentino Valentini, Berlusconi's National Security Advisor Bruno Archi - one of the witnesses in the Ruby trial, along with Valentini- the Italian PM's diplomatic adviser, Marco Carnelos, and the Permanent Representative of Italy to the NATO, Stefano Stefanini, were all targeted by the NSA, "the largest, most costly, and most technologically sophisticated spy organization the world has even known", as the prestigious American magazine "New Yorker" described it. The NSA, the very same US government agency whose mass surveillance programs were exposed by Edward Snowden three years ago.


Documents reveal that in March 2010, Silvio Berlusconi was also intercepted while talking to the Israeli leader Binyamin Netanyahu, at a time of maximum crisis between the United States and Israel, when the announcement of Netanyahu's plans to build 1,600 houses in East Jerusalem unleashed a diplomatic crisis between Washington and Tel Aviv. At that point, according to an Nsa interception, Netanyahu contacted several European countries, including Italy, in an attempt to smooth over the conflict with the US.


«Speaking with Italian Prime Minister (PM) Silvio Berlusconi, Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu insisted that the trigger for the dispute – Israel's decision to build 1,600 homes in contested East Jerusalem- was totally in keeping with national policy dating back to the administration of Golda Meir, and blamed this mishandling on a government official with poor political sensitivity. The objective now, Netanyahu said, is to keep the Palestinians from using this issue as a pretext to block a resumption of talks or to advance unrealistic claims that could risk sinking the peace negotiations altogether. Continuing, he asserted that the tension has only been heightened by the absense of direct contact between himself and the US President. In response, Berlusconi promised to put Italy at Israel's disposal in helping mend the latter's ties with Washington». 


This top secret interception of Berlusconi and Netanyahu, which dates back to March 2010, is one the NSA is allowed to share with the so-called "Five Eyes": the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, the powers with which the US have a special relationship for sharing intelligence they do not share with other countries. Instead the interception concerning Valentino Valentini, dating back to October 2011, is a top-secret/Noforn document, i.e. a top-secret file "not releasable to foreign nationals".


Both interceptions were conducted by the Special Collection Service (SCS), which is likely one of the most sensitive units in US intelligence. The service deploys teams under diplomatic cover, operating in US embassies and consulates around the world to control friendly and enemy governments, often in close collaboration with the CIA. Its task is extremely sensitive: providing «considerable perishable intelligence on leadership communications largely facilitated by site presence within a national capital», as the Snowden files explain. Back in 2013, thanks to a Snowden document dated 2010, l'Espresso and la Repubblica revealed how Italy was the only European country, along with Germany, to have two Scs teams on its territory: one in Rome and the other in Milan.



In the transcript of the Nsa interception of Berlusconi and Netanyahu's talks, the Special Collection Service is mentioned explicitly, whereas in the transcript of Valentino Valentini, we can only read that the communications were obtained through "unconventional" collection, a term that in most cases refers to the interceptions conducted by the Scs.


A very close collaborator of Silvio Berlusconi, Valentino Valentini was a target one could imagine would be of interest for the Nsa surveillance activities. In a US diplomatic cable dating back to 2009 and published by WikiLeaks, Valentini is described as a «shadowy figure who operates as Berlusconi's key man in Russia, albeit with no staff or even a secretary». The US does not seem to know exactly what he is doing in Moscow, however, «he is widely rumored to be looking after Berlusconi's business interests in Russia», as the US diplomacy writes to Washington in that cable, adding that US contacts, both in Berlusconi's party and in the center-left opposition, the Democratic Party, believe that «Berlusconi and his cronies are profiting personally and handsomely from many of the energy deals between Italy and Russia».

In the new documents regarding Italy revealed by WikiLeaks today, there are two Nsa interceptions targeting Berlusconi and Valentini respectively, and three "selectors", namely the telephone numbers used by the National Security Agency for its surveillance and listening programs. The three selectors correspond to the phone numbers of Stefano Stefanini, the Italian Permanent Representative to the NATO from 2007 to 2010; the Palazzo Chigi diplomatic adviser, Marco Carnelos, who became the diplomatic advisor of the Lazio region in 2011 and is currently the Italian ambassador in Baghdad, and finally Berlusconi's National Security Advisor, Bruno Archi. The first selector is a landline number which is still fully operational and still allows the caller to connect to the office of the Italian Permanent Representative to the NATO in Brussels, while the other two selectors correspond to two mobile numbers: dialing Marco Carnelos' number, it is still possible to connect to him directly.




Back in 2013 and thanks to the Snowden files, l'Espresso and la Repubblica revealed how the Nsa targeted Italy. The Snowden files allowed us to expose the presence of two Special Collection Service teams in the Italian territory, one in Rome and the other in Milan; the two Nsa spy operations "Bruneau" and "Hemlock", aimed at targeting the communications of the Italian Embassy in Washington DC; and finally the massive collection of Italian citizens' metadata. The Snowden files detailed how in just one month, from the 10th of December 2012 to the 9th of January 2013, the Nsa had collected the metadata for 45.893.570 telephone calls: who is calling whom, at what time, for how many minutes and from where.

Although the Italian Constitution fully protects the confidentiality of Italian citizens' communications and Italian law allows conducting interceptions only in a targeted manner- not using mass collection- and under a strict warrant and oversight by the judicial authority, to this day not a single Italian prosecutor has decided to open an investigation on our revelations about the Nsa mass surveillance activities against Italy.


The Italian government has always reacted to these revelations by implementing a silence and denial strategy. The current Italian PM, Matteo Renzi, has essentially ignored the case, whereas the former Italian PM, Enrico Letta, speaking to the Chamber of Deputies in the midst of the most heated phases of the Nsa scandal, declared: «Based on the analysis conducted by our intelligence services and our international contacts, we are not aware that the security of the communications of the Italian government and embassies has been compromised, nor are we aware that the privacy of Italian citizens has been compromised». After these new revelations by WikiLeaks, will the Italian government keep acting as if nothing has happened?

http://espresso.repubblica.it/inchieste/2016/02/22/news/wikileaks-reveals-the-nsa-spied-on-berlusconi-and-his-closest-advisors-1.251443

http://www.wikileaks.org/nsa-italy/