Israel's,UK's,U.S.Barack Obama's Women Torturing Allie Saudi Arabia

Israel's,UK's,U.S.Barack Obama's Women Torturing Allie Saudi Arabia

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/07/25/nsas-new-partner-spying-saudi-arabias-brutal-state-police/

The NSA’s New Partner in Spying: Saudi Arabia’s Brutal State Police

By Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain 25 Jul 2014, 4:19 PM EDT 109

Barack Obama and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah in 2010. Photo credit: Ron Edmonds/AP
The National Security Agency last year significantly expanded its cooperative relationship with the Saudi Ministry of Interior, one of the world’s most repressive and abusive government agencies. An April 2013 top secret memo provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden details the agency’s plans “to provide direct analytic and technical support” to the Saudis on “internal security” matters.

The Saudi Ministry of Interior—referred to in the document as MOI— has been condemned for years as one of the most brutal human rights violators in the world. In 2013, the U.S. State Department reported that “Ministry of Interior officials sometimes subjected prisoners and detainees to torture and other physical abuse,” specifically mentioning a 2011 episode in which MOI agents allegedly “poured an antiseptic cleaning liquid down [the] throat” of one human rights activist. The report also notes the MOI’s use of invasive surveillance targeted at political and religious dissidents.

But as the State Department publicly catalogued those very abuses, the NSA worked to provide increased surveillance assistance to the ministry that perpetrated them. The move is part of the Obama Administration’s increasingly close ties with the Saudi regime; beyond the new cooperation with the MOI, the memo describes “a period of rejuvenation” for the NSA’s relationship with the Saudi Ministry of Defense.

In general, U.S. support for the Saudi regime is long-standing. One secret 2007 NSA memo lists Saudi Arabia as one of four countries where the U.S. “has [an] interest in regime continuity.”

But from the end of the 1991 Gulf War until recently, the memo says, the NSA had a “very limited” relationship with the Saudi kingdom. In December 2012, the U.S. director of national intelligence, James Clapper, authorized the agency to expand its “third party” relationship with Saudi Arabia to include the sharing of signals intelligence, or “SIGINT,” capability with the MOD’s Technical Affairs Directorate (TAD).

“With the approval of the Third Party SIGINT relationship,” the memo reports, the NSA “intends to provide direct analytic and technical support to TAD.” The goal is “to facilitate the Saudi government’s ability to utilize SIGINT to locate and track individuals of mutual interest within Saudi Arabia.”

Even before this new initiative in 2012, the CIA and other American intelligence agencies had been working with the Saudi regime to bolster “internal security” and track alleged terrorists. According to the memo, the NSA began collaborating with the MOD in 2011 on a “sensitive access initiative… focused on internal security and terrorist activity on the Arabian Peninsula”; that partnership was conducted “under the auspices of CIA’s relationship with the MOI’s Mabahith (General Directorate for Investigations, equivalent to FBI).”

The NSA’s formal “Third Party” relationship with the Saudis involves arming the MOI with highly advanced surveillance technology. The NSA “provides technical advice on SIGINT topics such as data exploitation and target development to TAD,” the memo says, “as well as a sensitive source collection capability.”

The Saudi Ministry of Defense also relies on the NSA for help with “signals analysis equipment upgrades, decryption capabilities and advanced training on a wide range of topics.” The document states that while the NSA “is able to respond to many of those requests, some must be denied due to the fact that they place sensitive SIGINT equities at risk.”

Over the past year, the Saudi government has escalated its crackdown on activists, dissidents, and critics of the government. Earlier this month, Saudi human rights lawyer and activist Waleed Abu al-Khair was sentenced to 15 years in prison by a so-called “terrorist court” on charges of undermining the state and insulting the judiciary. In May, a liberal blogger, Raif Badawi, was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes; in June, human rights activist Mukhlif Shammari was sentenced to five years in prison for writing about the mistreatment of Saudi women.

At the time of the al-Khair sentencing, State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki issued a statement saying, “We urge the Saudi government to respect international human rights norms, a point we make to them regularly.”

Asked if the U.S. takes human rights records into account before collaborating with foreign security agencies, a spokesman for the office of the director of national intelligence told The Intercept: “Yes. We cannot comment on specific intelligence matters but, as a general principle, human rights considerations inform our decisions on intelligence sharing with foreign governments.”

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About the Authors

Glenn Greenwald
Editor: Read more
Murtaza Hussain
Reporter: Read more
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suave says:
26 Jul 2014 at 10:40 am
Jeff..

Yes it was. Now, do you have any other insignificant ‘pearls of wisdom’ that you’d like to contribute to the discussion?

Mr. ‘H’

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JungleRules says:
26 Jul 2014 at 10:18 am
Thank you Glenn.
Hopefully these types of articles will wake the comatose Arab.
Please keep them coming. Only by exposing the hypocrite rulers in Arabia will we have real peace

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NFJTAKFA says:
26 Jul 2014 at 10:34 am
Would you kindly be a bit more specific with your collective “we?”

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Surrealisto says:
26 Jul 2014 at 9:17 am
Partnership with this tyrannical theocratic monarchy is truly a marriage made in hell for the world’s pioneering constitutional republic. Lie down with pigs and get up with mud.

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Pedinska says:
26 Jul 2014 at 10:37 am
Partnership with this tyrannical theocratic monarchy is truly a marriage made in hell for the world’s pioneering constitutional republic.

Saudi Arabia arose as a result of an Arab uprising against the Ottoman Empire. That revolt was encouraged by the British, our current spouse from hell. At that time, the Sauds favored modernization and an increase in the number of non-Muslims in the area they controlled, and fought against the expansion of Wahhabism, a battle they have been slowly losing since.

Lie down with pigs and get up with mud.

The United States, through its history of conquest of third world nations for their resources is the largest pig on the planet. Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, a contemporary of that time who participated in military actions in the Philippines, China, in Central America and the Caribbean during the Banana Wars, and France in World War I, had this to say about US conquest:

I served in all commissioned ranks from a second Lieutenant to a Major General. And during that time, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street, and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.

I have no problem with criticizing the Saudis for who they are and what they do. But we also need to recognize the complicity of our own government’s policies in the creation of strife all over the world, in particular of late, the Middle East.

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Wild Bill Donovan says:
26 Jul 2014 at 9:12 am
The root of all evil teams up with the devil and I know it hard to see who’s who here. Don’t worry it doesn’t matter. Just know is very, very bad for all the rest of us.

Impeach Obama NOW!

The BALL’s of them. There is a bust of Abraham Lincoln on the table in the background. A closer look and you’ll see he’s crying his eyes out. This didn’t happen by accident nothing this devil does is by accident. It’s all done by design!

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doug wood says:
26 Jul 2014 at 5:35 am
“We were recently a Bedouin society. When we find water we share it with our neighbors or expect to be shot. We feel the same way about oil. We share 20% of the oil revenue with the conservatives in the south [Wahhabi] to keep them not a threat to our family.”

The US has been sharing intelligence with KSA for a long time. Early 1979 USA and KSA created a $12b joint fund to destabilize a secular Afghanistan. This fund was managed by Pakistan’s ISI. The CIA and Saudi intelligence recruited ObL. Carter’s defense secretary Zbigniew Brzezinski started Jihad because terrorists were less of a problem than the Soviets. There was a secret deal with President Reagan to supply Saudi oil for the war in Vietnam during the OPEC oil embargo. Under GW Bush the PNAC was planning to seize the southern oil fields. After 9-11 that plan was diverted to Iraq.

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VAN says:
26 Jul 2014 at 3:55 am
We humble citizens believe that ‘pouring antiseptic liquid down a human rights activist’ is a vile crime. But by calling the brand of this antiseptic ‘Democracy’, authorities in the US, government, congress and Pentagon will all rejoice!

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rahelah says:
26 Jul 2014 at 3:02 am
I was hoping these new Snowden Saudi docs might reveal something new about the evacuation of Saudis from the US in the immediate aftermath of 9-11. It has caused many people to wonder……….especially the ex Gov of FLA, Bob Graham, who took part in the investigation and is unable to speak about some 28 pages in the “report” that were redacted. Did Snowden get those 28 pages? The un-redacted ones?

From The Real News on April 23, 2014………Former U.S. Senator Bob Graham says greater awareness of Saudi Arabia as “essentially a co-conspirator in 9/11…would change the way in which, particularly in the current milieu of events in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia is being viewed” by the U.S. public………..
Senator Graham co-chaired the Congressional Joint Inquiry into 9/11 that investigated intelligence failures leading up to 9/11. The inquiry’s final report included a 28-page chapter describing the Saudi connection to 9/11, but it was completely redacted by U.S. intelligence agencies.

“I was stunned that the intelligence community would feel that it was a threat to national security for the American people to know who had made 9/11 financially possible,” said Senator Graham. “And I am sad to report that today, some 12 years after we submitted our report, that those 28 pages continue to be withheld from the public.”

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?ption=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11103

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JungleRules says:
26 Jul 2014 at 10:34 am
By having secret proof of Saudi complicity it allows the US to manipulate SA as they wish. For example
Saudi bankrolling Egyptian Army when US could not
Saudi chasing after Al Qaeda in Yemen
Saudi sponsoring terrorist in Syria
and so on
What has Saudia done about the ongoing slaughter of Palestinians?, I would not be surprised if they came out in support of Israel

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Geoffrey de Galles says:
26 Jul 2014 at 3:00 am
Lovely to see the elevated Obama here partnering with such a hoodie under the blessing of Lincoln. All the POTUS would need to do to bring the bloke to his senses, were He to feel such action is called for, is to dispatch his wife Michelle — or Dianne Feinstein, or Jen Psaki, or Marie Harf, come to that — to Saudi Arabia for a freebie vacation with an insistence that, upon arrival, none of them take ‘no’ for an answer at any of the car-rental offices at the airport. Obama might then follow up by rewarding Greenwald for his considerable services to US democracy by dispatching him and Miranda, together, and ensuring the couple were in possession of a US marriage certificate so they could thereby enjoy the luxury of a honeymoon-suite.

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Wildduckcluster says:
26 Jul 2014 at 2:55 am
The hypocrisy of the U.S. is unmatched on almost every level! What’s more, three quarter of the U.S. population still believes: a, Americans are “exceptional”; b, the rest of the world just loves them; c, Americans clearly have the moral high ground, no matter what; d, America is the epitome of freedom and a working democracy (having not a shred of an idea of the Oligarchy/Plutocracy they actually live in); etc…, ad nauseam. I could go on using 100 full alphabets! The stupidity in the U.S. is also unmatched!

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AGGRIEVED says:
26 Jul 2014 at 9:12 am
RIGHT ON!

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Fran Macadam says:
26 Jul 2014 at 2:17 am
“If we don’t work with them, then
they don’t help us fight terrorism”

They are helping us fight terrorism by supplying the terrorists.

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Julie says:
26 Jul 2014 at 12:42 am
lovePeace
Yeah..thanks for the update reporting on this , think even with all the corruption and illegal financial support of a Illegitament, and murderous “Government” when Islamic Caliphate turns it’s Deadly Jahadist on Saudi Arabia, they going to use All that USA has sold them and much much more…and to No Avail…I predict that that current Saudia Arabia and it’s vast Oil industries and reserves will be attacked and removed from production and the World markets do not see any way that that corrupt and corrupting system of Global Oil Repression will last very much longer.
he real issue is the Geepolitical Blowback Chaos this will induce for the USA and the Whole World’s fragile Finacial status, which in every case will be coming Along as the Middle Eatern Area Disinergrate into Bloodshed and Civil Calamities on scale never before Experienced in remebered History.Perhaps we should have all pasued when we were mindwashed by our repective Goverments that War is a answer to anything, other that the MIC Balance sheet.
The time, are certainly Changing Forever..Change in Every State.
I have One Word…Bitcoin!
LoveTruth

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keller says:
26 Jul 2014 at 8:31 am
Bitcoin? I prefer hugs

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Benito Mussolini says:
26 Jul 2014 at 12:22 am
Some countries are allies because they buy American weapons. Some countries are allies because they supply the US with oil. Saudi Arabia is at the top of both those lists, so no wonder they have a special relationship, as this article celebrates. Throw in the fact their secret service models itself on the CIA and that both countries encourage religious fundamentalism at home to advance their political agenda, and you have a match made in heaven.

Yet even in paradise, there can be problems. Saudi Arabia is somewhat disgruntled the US hasn’t gone to war against Syria or Iran. They need to understand that friendship has its limits. The US is not interested in tipping the balance in the Middle East, merely assuring that all sides continue to fight each other. But I’m sure that Saudi Arabia will be reasonable and not let this sour them on what is essentially a splendid relationship.

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keller says:
26 Jul 2014 at 5:38 am
And some people marry because of very practical reasons. And stay together. (Astrology may help too)

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ambon p. says:
25 Jul 2014 at 11:51 pm
having worked in saudi, i’ve always wondered what was the line between the censors/religious police and actual intelligence groups? and how on earth is the NSA supposed to play into that mix? and also: if we’re relying on saudi intel, our perceptions will probably become distorted by their own interests/prejudices, especially in terms of screwing-down the saudi shia populations; also, it’s a fair bet that the saudis will blow tremendous amounts of smoke, telling us whatever they think we want to hear– or what they want us to hear– while ignoring actual, substantive threats to their own regime (unclear line of succession among the 2nd generation princes; widespread popular disaffection, among the Saudi youth; ferocious sectarian hatred, of the Saudi wahabi/sunnis towards the Saudi shia, which the regime cannot necc. contain or even identify; vast amounts of cash-money within Saudi Arabia that cannot be tracked, because Saudis do not pay taxes and have therefore never been subjected to any form of audit; etc etc etc). all of that’s to say that: if the proposition is that the NSA can treat the KSA as a bona-fide intelligence partner, then somebody’s probably getting _____. not sure who, though. and i hope that somebody is ensuring that we haven’t just given the religious police the means to completely subvert the internet within saudi, and selectively entrap entire populations? because that would be a very bad outcome, both for the KSA and for the entire region.

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Morning Tide says:
25 Jul 2014 at 11:42 pm
Meanwhile, many believe Saudi Arabia is named as a “foreign source of support” for the 9/11 terrorists in 28 redacted pages within a House/Senate inquiry report. This week, both the Chair and Vice-Chair of the 9/11 Commission Report called for that section to be declassified:
http://28pages.org/2014/07/23/911-commission-chair-vice-chair-say-28-pages-should-be-declassified/
http://28pages.org/2014/07/17/foreign-government-involvement-in-911-shouldnt-stay-secret/

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indian says:
25 Jul 2014 at 10:51 pm
Ahh… The United States of Arabia.

& Americans who are exposing such things, putting their lives on line don’t seem to get enough support.

What goes round, will eventually come around… if it has not already

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