The German Operation Eikonal as Part of NSA's Rampart-A Program | Hacker News Reader

The German Operation Eikonal as Part of NSA's Rampart-A Program

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97 pointsomnibrain17 comments

  The BND noticed at some point that the 
  NSA searched for information about the
  European defence contractor EADS (now 
  Airbus Group), the Eurocopter and French
  government agencies.

Welcome to the NSA's secondary purpose. Corporate espionage for hire. The military industrial complex hard at work.

Also, if I was running a huge US hedge fund, that information would be really valuable. Just saying.

Especially in technology of military importance. That sounds like "duh", but I mean military technology of allies whose products are available to the US military.

It is about aiding US military defensive contractors with information that gives them an edge over their foreign competitors. The defense industry is notoriously corrupt and backhanders is common place.

Mark Thomas (Comedy Product) did some interesting TV shows about the arms trade a few years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Thomas

it's any technology - including major Internet corporations, such as the ones that many HN users work for.

Any large company that pays it's taxes, employs lots of Americans or Brits can benefit from their government helping them out. It's not just guns and tanks - it's the whole system.

That is what happening i am sure there are contractors in this "information gathering club" who offer services like these to the right customer and if anything bubbles they have a scapegoat.

We have seen how much one man can carry away from this place without anyone noticing.

You'd think an intelligence service would know that NSA isn't a friend and not repeat history. They did almost exactly the same thing in 1990.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON#Concerns

This is a all new level of corruption, here are the interesting bits:

- In 1994, Airbus lost a $6 billion contract with Saudi Arabia after the NSA, acting as a whistleblower, reported that Airbus officials had been bribing Saudi officials to secure the contract.[58] As a result, the American aerospace company McDonnell Douglas (now part of Boeing) won the multi-billion dollar contract instead of Airbus.[59]

- The American defense contractor Raytheon won a US$1.3 billion contract with the Government of Brazil to monitor the Amazon rainforest after the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), acting as a whistleblower, reported that Raytheon's French competitor Thomson-Alcatel had been paying bribes to get the contract.[60]

- In order to boost America's position in trade negotiations with the then Japanese Trade Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, in 1995 the CIA eavesdropped on the conversations between Japanese bureaucrats and executives of car manufacturers Toyota and Nissan.[61]

While revealing corruption is nice, I think it's safe to say that everyone serious about winning a big government contract in Saudi Arabia or Brazil is not going to be clean. So the American companies probably bribed too, but got away with it since no one whistleblew on them.

Intelligence is, largely, not about friendship. It's about exploiting the assets available to you.

It is too bad Europe is so feeble. They will helpless pawns for the next few decades if not longer. The European lifestyle is going away, the only question is how long before they wake up.

care to expand on what "the European lifestyle" means?

The generous benefits enjoyed by Europeans are being rolled back due to economic malaise. This is unlikely to change especially if they cannot stand up to the Americans.

I think something copy&pasted from the "American Lifestyle" minus the abuses.

Business as usual, this article is from 1994: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/1994/05/company-spies

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