The Subject of Discord

[unhappycamper]

http://watchingamerica.com/News/233046/the-subject-of-discord/

The Subject of Discord
El Diario, Mexico
By Raymundo Riva Palacio
Translated By Mayra Reiter
18 February 2014
Edited by Brent Landon

This Wednesday, Toluca will become the capital of North America thanks to President Enrique Peña Nieto, who persuaded his colleagues from the United States and Canada that this is the place to hold the eighth North America Leaders Summit. The capital of the state that catapulted him to the presidency is impeccable. The Toluca city center is a fortress under the watch of the Presidential General Staff — and the Secret Service and the Mounted Police. Nothing should break with the schedule or the protocol in the face of public opinion, where there will be smiles and warm greetings. But behind closed doors, Mexican diplomats think that the bilateral meeting between Presidents Peña Nieto and Barack Obama will be rough.

The subject of discord, about which nobody wants to speak in public, is espionage. Diplomats from both countries have emphasized the economic character of this summit and underscored that the three North American nations have the same amount of trade between them as the 26 European Union members and the 13 top Asian countries — with the exception of China. There will be a joint statement from the three leaders at the summit, and 26 working documents reflecting how vast the agenda is. But before the party and the celebration will come the moment of truth about the espionage.

Mexico, like a large number of other countries, was subjected for years to systematic espionage by the National Security Agency, which is under the Pentagon’s jurisdiction. According to German newspaper Der Spiegel, which had access to the documents that the agency’s ex-contractor Edward Snowden took with him into exile, in May 2010 it penetrated the server of the Presidency of the Republic and was able to monitor the email of ex-President Felipe Calderon and the cabinet, which gave it a privileged view of “Mexico’s political system and internal stability.”

Previously, Brazilian TV network Globo revealed that the NSA expanded its espionage in 2012 to include Peña Nieto, then a presidential candidate. The NSA tapped his telephone and those of nine aides, through whose phone calls they drew a map of his regular contacts, which allowed them to spy on over 85,000 text messages, including an indeterminate number belonging to Peña Nieto.