Secret American documents leaked by Edward Snowden suggest that Poland is one of the countries that help US intelligence services spy on phone calls, faxes, emails, Skype calls and other internet communications around the world.
Classified files from US spy turned whistleblower Edward Snowden, published by Denmark’s Dagbladet Information in collaboration with Glenn Greenwald’s The Intercept portal, list Poland as among 33 ‘third-party’ countries with which the US National Security Agency has secret agreements for tapping into fibre optic communications cables.
The files relate to a secret surveillance project called RAMPART-A and show that third-party nations ‘provide access to cables and host US equipment’.
Third-party status means in this case that governments secretly allow US intelligence agencies to install monitoring equipment on communications cables.
The Intercept reports Mr Snowden as saying that there was a tacit, though unenforceable agreement between other third-party states including Germany and Denmark, which meant that the US could operate in this way as long as it did not search for citizens of those nations.
However, Inside-Poland.com exclusively revealed last summer that American law enforcement agencies do spy on Poles, and in 2012 they asked for information about at least 70 people in Poland, successfully receiving the names, addresses and internet histories of at least 55.
Read the full report from The Intercept, and download background documents here.
Picture: Approved US Signal Intelligence partners, leaked by Edward Snowden, published by The Intercept
