WikiLeaks docs show the US spied on Japan
American spies
covertly monitored top officials within the Japanese government and
business sector to gain insight into trade plans and climate change
policy, according to new documents released by WikiLeaks.
Classified National Security Agency (NSA) messages show that U.S.
officials have been able to secretly look deep within the Japanese power
structure since at least 2007.
The release comes after WikiLeaks’s dumps of similar communications
targeting Brazil, France and Germany, all of which are also U.S. allies.
Some of the documents indicate that the intercepted communications were
shared with Britain, Canada and other nations in the “Five Eyes”
community of intelligence sharing.
“In these documents we see the
Japanese government worrying in private about how much or how little to
tell the United States, in order to prevent undermining of its climate
change proposal or its diplomatic relationship,” WikiLeaks head Julian
Assange said in a statement on Friday. “And yet we now know that the
United States heard everything and read everything, and was passing
around the deliberations of Japanese leadership to Australia, Canada,
New Zealand and the U.K.
“The lesson for Japan is this: Do not expect a global surveillance superpower to act with honor or respect.”
