122 World Leaders on NSA Target List | Global Research

122 World Leaders on NSA Target List | Global Research

A list of high-priority intelligence targets published over the
weekend includes the names of over a hundred current and former heads of
state, who were systematically targeted by the United States National
Security Agency (NSA). The list appears to be part of a wider “Target
Knowledge Base” assembled by the NSA in order to help produce “complete
profiles” of what the NSA calls “high-priority intelligence targets”.

The list is contained in a classified top-secret briefing created by the NSA in 2009. It was published by German newsmagazine Der Spiegel,
which said it acquired it from American intelligence defector Edward
Snowden. Snowden, a former computer expert for the NSA and the Central
Intelligence Agency, is currently living in Russia, where he has been
offered political asylum.

The leaked briefing explains the function of an extensive NSA signals
intelligence (SIGINT) collection program codenamed NYMROD. The
computer-based program is allegedly able to sift through millions of
SIGINT reports and collate information on individual targets from the
transcripts of intercepted telephone calls, faxes, as well as computer
data.

The list provided to Der Spiegel by
Snowden contains 122 names of international political figures, said the
newsmagazine, adding that all of them were “heads of foreign
governments”. It includes the name of German Chancellor Angela Merkel,
Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, Ukraine’s Yulia Tymoshenko, as well as
Belarussian strongman Alexander Lukashenko. Colombia’s former
President, Alvaro Uribe, and Malaysia’s Prime Minster from 2003 to 2009,
Abdullah bin Haji Ahmad Badawi, also figure on the list.