The Russians Wiretap, Too? It Cannot Be!

Whoever listened in on Victoria Nuland’s “fuck the EU,” and made it public … this reminds the world that there is not just the National Security Agency.

We do not know what to smirk about first: well, about the, let us say, “disarming openness,” with which Nuland professed her opinion on the mediation competence of the European Union — by the way, we can confidently assume that this opinion spans across large parts of the United States government, even if some might formulate it more elegantly — or about the United States, of all places, having become the victim of a wiretapping campaign.

Over the past months, things have gotten a little out of proportion with the constant new revelations in the NSA affair. One could almost assume that it is only the “evil” United States that, all around the world, wiretaps and spies on everything it can lay its hands on. Not to be misunderstood: This does not in any way excuse the NSA and its associated agencies wiretapping Germany’s chancellor and who knows what other government leaders, nor does it excuse the data vacuum-cleaner in Maryland that greedily sucks in everything that comes into its reach, quite simply because it can.

However, we [also] all too gladly forget that every other intelligence agency in the world listens in and collects information whenever possible. After all, that is somewhat part of the job description — that the agencies of that land where NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden found refuge are no shrinking violets, and that before the beginning of the NSA affair, a completely different country, China, was considered the frontrunner in cyberespionage.

Whether it actually was the Russians, as some things indicate, who recorded the top diplomat’s undiplomatic behavior, or someone else — of course, we cannot rule out 100 percent an internal American leak — is actually besides the point in the Nuland affair. Its main benefit is that it realigns the coordinates a bit, and if it actually was the Russians, then they have reminded the world in a thoroughly humorous way that there is not just the NSA.