Obama's Explanation of Extrajudicial Surveillance Is Hypocritical

Edward Snowden’s disclosure of America’s illegal surveillance of other countries’ telecommunications information — specifically the electronic communications of foreign national leaders — has already set off a second wave of strong, worldwide opposition. Compared with his previous exposure of the U.S. National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) massive special program for the sweeping surveillance of domestic and foreign telecommunications intelligence, these disclosed materials are even more sensitive: A large number of those people who were observed by American telecommunications surveillance were foreign national leaders. Moreover, the United States used embassies and consulates abroad as the physical entities that implemented this illegal surveillance. According to reports, this surveillance also received the cooperation of some of America’s allies.

The United States government was curious about other countries’ information; that in itself is not difficult to understand. The United States’ implementation of domestic surveillance is also not without anti-terrorist purposes. But in ensuring that these intentions are carried out under the framework of the law, the United States has largely overstepped its bounds, offending countless people both home and abroad. Washington not only willfully monitored its own citizens, greatly violating its own anti-terrorism laws and regulations, but also implemented sweeping surveillance abroad, including the targeting of international leaders, regardless of whether they were allies, partners or adversaries. And this effort was, in fact, completely unrelated to fighting terrorism.

Existing international law protects the sovereignty of every nation: The core of the United Nations Charter is ensuring peace for every member of the international community, beginning with sovereignty and security. Every nation has legitimate national security issues that must be kept confidential, and every national leader is one of the key persons with access to the highest state secrets. Therefore every national government must make every effort to protect the confidentiality of its leaders’ communications. The United States itself has channeled its most advanced technological achievements into constructing for its president what has been called the world’s most secure mobile phone.

However, the U.S. surveillance of other countries’ state secrets domestically and abroad completely disregards the purpose of the U.N. Charter it helped create. Not only did the U.S. monitor the confidential information of the U.N., the World Bank and other international organizations, but it also monitored the communications of other nations’ embassies and consulates within the United States and further deployed surveillance-capable technology in its diplomatic stations abroad, with surveillance including that of the electronic communications of the other country’s leadership. The United States also required a few of its allies to cooperate, either to establish an intelligence reconnaissance network or to intercept fiber-optic communications. Such behavior is unheard of and completely ignores the sovereignty of other nations.

President Obama is now putting on aggrieved airs, saying he did not know that the NSA was targeting foreign leaders. If this statement is not hypocritical, then the world must question whether America is still a country based on the rule of law. If U.S. leaders had absolutely no knowledge of the NSA’s unauthorized exertion of its prowess abroad, then the United States must be held by spies. If Obama knew it yet let it happen, then he must bear the responsibility for the U.S. violation of the U.N. Charter and a series of other diplomatic regulations in common use throughout the international community. If he knew it and continued to lie, then his dishonesty does further damage to the United States’ diplomatic credibility.

The world cannot accept the willingness of U.S. agencies abroad to shelter their country’s illegal activities. The international community must unite to prevent the U.S. government’s previously described disregard for and violation of other nation’s legitimate rights. The moves by Germany, Brazil and other countries for a discussion at the U.N. General Assembly to restrict U.S. infringement on other nation’s private information should be widely supported. The relevant provisions of the U.N. Charter must be used to recognize and protect the informational sovereignty of every member of the international community, the hegemony of the United States’ extrajudicial surveillance should be checked and international law should play an important role in that restraint.