Few could have anticipated the profound consequences which have resulted from Edward Snowden's revelations. The "City on the hill" has come tumbling down, the true features of the vicious hegemony have been revealed and its relations with its allies and potential adversaries are undergoing significant changes. In short, the world has changed completely in the space of a month.

Pinocchio Syndrome[By Jiao Haiyang/China.org.cn]

According to Der Spiegel and The Guardian, U.S. agencies bugged the offices of the European Union in Washington and at the United Nations in New York. They also directed an operation from NATO headquarters in Brussels to infiltrate the telephone and email networks at the E.U.'s Justus Lipsius building in the Belgian capital, which is the venue for E.U. summits and home of the European Council.

According to Der Spiegel, the NSA not only bugged the building on Washington's K Street which houses the E.U.'s delegation to the U.S., but also infiltrated its internal computer network.

These actions have sparked protests from European leaders.

Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian prime minister and leader of the liberals in the European parliament, said: "This is absolutely unacceptable and must be stopped immediately."

Meanwhile, Martin Schultz, the head of the European parliament, commented: "I am deeply worried and shocked about the allegations of U.S. authorities spying on E.U. offices. If the allegations prove to be true, it would be an extremely serious matter which will have a severe impact on E.U.-U.S. relations.

Both Der Spiegel and The Guardian also reveal that the Americans are collecting metadata from up to half a billion communications - including phone calls, emails and text messages - a month in Germany. That makes Germany one of the biggest sources of the stream of information flowing into the NSA's gigantic sea of data. (Iran is hit the hardest. Next come Pakistan, Jordan and others)

Obama keeps trying to downplay the importance of metadata, but don't be deceived. Metadata is a gold mine for investigators because it shows not only contact networks, but also enables the creation of movement profiles and even predictions about the possible behavior of the people participating in the communication under surveillance.

Why, though, is Germany under such close surveillance? Germany has been classified as a "third-class" partner and the U.S. itself is defined as "first party" while the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand enjoy "second party" trusted relationships. Countries such as Germany and France have "third party", or less trusted, relationships. Germany is also the most important member of the E.U. and the U.S. is also interested in German industrial and commercial knowhow.

In addition, Der Spiegel disclosed that the NSA has alliances with more than 90 major global corporations and that the collaboration between Germany's Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and the NSA will be the focus of a parliamentary investigative committee in Berlin responsible for monitoring the intelligence services.

So far, the German government has made nothing more than polite inquiries regarding the bugging and surveillance accusations. But Chancellor Merkel is obviously under increasing pressure with elections only three months away.

To all this, Obama declared that it is perfectly normal for countries to spy on each other. That may be so, but the scale of the spying is surely a cause for concern.

The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.ccgp-fushun.com/opinion/zhaojinglun.htm

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