Syria Crackdown Gets Italy Firm’s Aid With U.S.-Europe Spy Gear

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By Ben Elgin and Vernon Silver - Nov 3, 2011 4:01 PM PT

Nov. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Bloomberg's Vernon Silver reports on how Italian technicians are aiding Syria with surveillance. He speaks with Linzie Janis on Bloomberg Television's "First Look." (Source: Bloomberg)

As Syria’s crackdown on protests has claimed more than 3,000 lives since March, Italian technicians in telecom offices from Damascus to Aleppo have been busy equipping President Bashar al-Assad’s regime with the power to intercept, scan and catalog virtually every e-mail that flows through the country.

Employees of Area SpA, a surveillance company based outside Milan, are installing the system under the direction of Syrian intelligence agents, who’ve pushed the Italians to finish, saying they urgently need to track people, a person familiar with the project says. The Area employees have flown into Damascus in shifts this year as the violence has escalated, says the person, who has worked on the system for Area.

Area is using equipment from American and European companies, according to blueprints and other documents obtained by Bloomberg News and the person familiar with the job. The project includes Sunnyvale, California-based NetApp Inc. (NTAP) storage hardware and software for archiving e-mails; probes to scan Syria’s communications network from Paris-based Qosmos SA; and gear from Germany’s Utimaco Safeware AG (USA) that connects tapped telecom lines to Area’s monitoring-center computers.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-03/syria-crackdown-gets-italy-firm-s-aid-with-u-s-europe-spy-gear.html

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1. Senators press for answers on Syria’s use of American-made Internet technology

U.S. lawmakers said Monday that they want to know how the Syrian government obtained American-made technology used to conduct online surveillance and block access to the Internet.

The Washington Post reported last month that the government of President Bashar al-Assad was believed to be using technology developed by California-based Blue Coat Systems in its bid to quash dissent in Syria. In a separate report, Bloomberg News reported that technology from another California company, NetApp, was being used by Assad’s government to monitor Syrians’ online activities.

In a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Commerce Secretary John Bryson, three senators urged the administration to investigate whether the firms had provided “tools of repression” to Damascus.

“The sale of U.S.-made equipment that may have contributed to ongoing violence is unacceptable and should be investigated as soon as possible,” reads the letter from Sens. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), Robert Casey (D-Penn.) and Christopher Coons (D-Del.).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/checkpoint-washington/post/senators-press-for-answers-on-syrias-use-of-american-made-internet-technology/2011/11/14/gIQArkukLN_blog.html