September 25, 2018

The U.K.’s knack for spying is making the EU angry

located:	Belgium
editor:	Shira Jeczmien

It is not exactly news that the U.K. is collecting mass data on other EU member states through surveillance and cyber-attacking sensitive infrastructure. It was reported back in 2013 when "Germany blasted Britain" for the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHG) mass tapping of its calls, to the extent that German citizens were targeted. In August of this year, EU officials suspected that the U.K.’s M16 is spying on Brexit negotiators in a desperate bid to get an upper hand on deal (or no deal) discussions and on Thursday, Sept 20, a report by Belgium officials confirmed that British intelligence has hacked the state-owned Belacom, a Belgium telecom company, on behalf of Washington.

Yahoo news reported that this is “one of the consequences of the myriad revelations” that were made by the revelations of currently extradited whistleblower Edward Snowden back in 2013 that the U.S.’s National Security Agency (NSA) is working closely with the GCHQ to collect sensitive data from EU member states. Furthermore, the report comes at a highly tense time between Britain and the EU and could risk seriously harming the nation’s close ties as level-headed Brexit negotiations (or otherwise) are in desperate need.

It was because of an expose within Snowden’s 2013 revelations that the Belgium investigation focused on the GCHQ’s hacking of a unit within Belacom, which reportedly handles large volumes of phone and data traffic in the Middle East, Africa and EU member states. In response to the report, which has now been submitted to the Office of Justice Minister, Koen Greens, German Politician of the Alliance 90/Green party, Jan Philipp Albrecht tweeted, “So it’s official what we’ve been asking since Snowden 2013: The UK has been cyber attacking another EU member states’ sensitive infrastructure including EU and NATO on behalf of the US.” Continuing to write that “If we care an inch about international and EU laws we can’t let [this] become an acceptable practice.”

It is yet uncertain what reaction this report will set in motion. The matter is now being discussed by the Belgium National Security Council, yet for the time being representatives from Greens’ Justice department have refused to comment. What is becoming more apparent however is that serious steps are likely to be taken by Belgium and other EU member states. When Snowden’s report came out five years ago, the then Prime Minister of Belgium, Elio di Rupo, said that he would take serious measures if interferences from another nation were confirmed.