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From: DIGEST of REPLIES Subject: QUERY: International Agreements Not To Spy 1 Bruce Barron 2 Ernesto Sanchez 3 Al Mongeon 4 Joseph Fitsanakis 1. Bruce Barron, Bruce_Barron@URMC.Rochester.edu Mark: Thanks for the interesting post. I just wanted to comment on Bullet #1. It is my understanding the Five Eyes countries will not spy on each other, unless...there is a reason to do so. To my knowledge, this is a grey area open to interpretation, i.e. eye of the beholder. Although I agree the motivation to spy on each other is relatively low, given the dynamics of intelligence in a rapidly evolving world and the stakes involved, I believe the threshold for surveillance is also low. It might be useful to better understand what event or events among the Five Eyes countries would serve as probable cause to impose surveillance on another member. Perhaps this issue is already well defined; if so, the information could be used to assess the feasibility in crafting a similar agreement with some of the European countries. Your post got me thinking: Does the Five Eyes agreement work because we are 'more alike than different,' while a similar agreement with other European countries may not be feasible because we are 'more different than alike?' r/ Bruce Bruce A. Barron, MD, MS CAPT MC(FS) U.S. Naval Reserve (ret) CAPT MC(FS) New York Naval Militia, Force Medical Officer Medical Director, Strong Occupational & Environmental Medicine Interim Medical Director, Finger Lakes Occupational Health Services Associate Professor of Environmental Medicine University of Rochester Medical Center 400 Red Creek Drive, Suite 220 Rochester, NY 14623 2. Ernesto Sanchez ernestosanchez94@AOL.COM May I please offer some comments as a lawyer, as well as a historian (mere master's degree)? 1. Five Eyes. I wouldn't be too sure that these countries have never had any motive to spy on each other, though the occasions have been few, minimal in diplomatic magnitude, and focused on policymakers. Here are some examples. Suez Crisis - US/UK US, Aus, NZ could have spied on UK as UK planned unpopular withdrawal from Singapore in late 1960s Conspiracy theory - US supposedly contributed to defeat of 1970s Aus PM (Whitlam?) who criticized lack of transparency at US sigint facilities. Post a few days ago showed he was nicer to KGB. Chris Andrew documents Labour suspicions of MI-5-led coup plans against second Harold Wilson govt. I think Wilson went so far as to question then-CIA director Bush about spying. NZ anti-nuclear policy. US would have had good reason to see which NZ politicians supported policy. 2. Agreements. The few int agreements I've seen (declassified, media leaks) tend to be called "memoranda of understanding." Look at agreements and see if there is some kind of enforceable dispute resolution clause (eg confidential arbitration). My guess is that most, if not all, of these will even have clauses saying that no rights enforceable at law are created. Meaning (from this lawyers' point of view) that agreements are ultimately worthless, as you seem to suspect. I hope this helps. Ernesto Sanchez 3. Al Mongeon lightning6b@GMAIL.COM Dr. Stout, I appreciate your very interesting and timely discussion and, insofar as the 5 Eyes treaty is concerned I would agree with your summation and conclusion. However, I would not extend that conclusion to all countries in Europe. I offer as evidence the failure of the Iranian nuclear talks over the weekend when the French took a much harder line than the US and, it appeared anyway, that the French position was not anticipated by the US. Now, that failure could be traced to several things one must be intelligence. The intelligence can be gained in many ways, open source, HUMINT, COMINT and SIGINT are a few. To say that we don't need to "spy" on our European neighbors is a stretch I believe. At this point, when we talk spying, the natural jump is to the NSA SIGINT. There are other forms of intelligence gathering and, I suspect, that any nation that is concerned about its way forward gathers intelligence on many targets - some "friendly", some not so friendly. All the best, Al Mongeon, CBCP CCM 4. Joseph Fitsanakis fitsanakis@GMAIL.COM Mark, Thanks for your thoughtful prompt. I think your comments/questions provide a useful framework in which to examine the current intelligence imbroglio between the United States and its continental European partners. In looking at the history of state-sponsored intelligence over the last 100 years, one would have to point to individual case studies of countries that made a conscious political decision to unilaterally dismantle parts of their intelligence apparatus. Recall, for instance, Henry Stimson’s famous dictum that “gentlemen don’t read each other’s mail”. I recognize that the sincerity of that statement is disputed by some historians, but it impacted to some extent on American signals intelligence of the interwar period. There are also cases of countries that pulled back from spying on adversaries or former colonies after undergoing a massive political shift. South Africa’s intelligence and covert-action apparatus paid far less attention to Zimbabwe, Botswana or Namibia following the end of apartheid. Portugal’s intelligence agencies pulled back from activities in southern Africa after 1974 (though, interestingly, this is slowly changing today). But I would add another parameter to this discussion. You mentioned that Warsaw Pact intelligence agencies spied little if at all on the Soviet Union, because these countries’ intelligence services were effectively under Soviet control. I would suggest that, to some extent, several Western European intelligence services —notably in West Germany, Greece, Austria, and elsewhere— were under considerable American control during much of the Cold War. Could it be, therefore, that what we are witnessing in today’s post-Cold-War context is the gradual operational distancing between American and Western European intelligence agencies? In other words, it may be that American and Western European intelligence institutions, which for several decades enjoyed considerable operational intimacy, are now slowly pulling away and demarcating their respective domains? The same could be said to apply to the intelligence relationship between the United States and several Latin American countries —notably Brazil, whose government has also taken a strong stance against NSA operations. I realize that all of this is painted with a rather broad brush stroke, but I am hoping it might spark further useful exchange. Thanks for reading. Joseph Dr. Joseph Fitsanakis Editor, http://intelNews.org Coordinator, Security and Intelligence Studies program King University, USA | http://bit.ly/AboutJosephFitsanakis _______________________________ORIGINAL MESSAGE_________ From: H-Net Network on Intelligence History and Studies [H-INTEL@H-NET.MSU.EDU] On Behalf Of H-Intel [Copeland] [intel@MAIL.H-NET.MSU.EDU] Sent: Monday, November 11, 2013 10:52 PM To: H-INTEL@H-NET.MSU.EDU Subject: QUERY: International Agreements Not To Spy From: Mark Stout mstout4@jhu.edu Sent: Monday November 11, 2013 at 16:34 Subject: International Agreements Not To Spy I've been intrigued by the recent proposals to establish some sort of international agreement that the US would not spy on Germany, France, and other European nations and vice versa. As a way of considering whether any such arrangement is actually feasible, I've been thinking of historical precedents. It seems to me that there are three: 1. The Five Eyes community of the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Here the political and cultural commonalities are so substantial that the motivation to spy on each other is essentially zero. In addition, the degree of actual interpenetration and cooperation on intelligence, defense, foreign policy and other issues is so high that, again, it reduces the motivation and also at least somewhat provides a degree of verification that no spying is taking place. Furthermore, the fact that the policymaking processes in these countries is pretty substantially transparent also reduces the motivation to spy. 2. The Warsaw Pact. Here the non-Soviet Warsaw Pact countries (with the exception of Romania) spied little if at all on the Soviet Union. The reasons for this were two: these countries' intelligence services were effectively under Soviet control, merely one more manifestation of the loss of sovereignty of these countries to the USSR. Second, Soviet penetration both overt and clandestine of these services was so extensive that any espionage aimed at the USSR would have been promptly detected and corrected. 3. The numerous pairs of countries that have no actual interaction of any kind. For instance, I rather doubt that Bhutan spies on Guatemala. What would be the point? None of these precedents applies to the US and the nations of Europe. From this, I conclude that there is very little prospect for a meaningful agreement ending espionage between the US and European nations. Does anyone have any other historical precedents or other way of looking at the problem that would suggest a different conclusion? --Mark Mark Stout, PhD Program Director, MA in Global Security Studies Krieger School of Arts and Sciences Advanced Academic Programs Johns Hopkins University 1717 Massachusetts Avenue NW Suite 104 Washington, DC 20036 (202)663-5978 -- -- -- --
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