Dropmire is a

surveillance Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, many activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing, or directing. This can include observation from a distance by means of electronic equipment, such as ...

program by the United States'

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is an intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the director of national intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and proces ...

(NSA) aimed at surveillance of foreign embassies and diplomatic staff, including those of

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

allies. The program's existence was revealed in June 2013 by

whistleblower Whistleblowing (also whistle-blowing or whistle blowing) is the activity of a person, often an employee, revealing information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe, unethical or ...

Edward Snowden Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is a former National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence contractor and whistleblower who leaked classified documents revealing the existence of global surveillance programs. Born in 1983 in Elizabeth ...

in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

''. The report alleged that at least 38 foreign

embassies A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase usually denotes a ...

were under surveillance, some of them as far back as 2007. Earlier in June 2013, ''The Guardian'' had reported that the NSA spied on diplomats during the 2009 G-20 London Summit, but no precise program name was revealed at the time. Diplomatic spying by the United States had been revealed as far back as 2010, when it was revealed that US agencies had spied on the

Secretary-General of the United Nations The secretary-general of the United Nations (UNSG or UNSECGEN) is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations and head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the United Nations System#Six principal organs, six principal organs of ...

Ban Ki-moon Ban Ki-moon (born 13 June 1944) is a South Korean politician and diplomat who served as the eighth secretary-general of the United Nations between 2007 and 2016. Prior to his appointment as secretary-general, Ban was the South Korean minister ...

– at the time, it was not known that this had been done as part of a systematic program.WikiLeaks cables: Hillary Clinton meets Ban Ki-moon after spying revelations
''

'', 2 Dec 2010. Retrieved Jul 2013.

References

2013 scandals American secret government programs Counterterrorism in the United States Espionage Human rights Intelligence agency programmes revealed by Edward Snowden Mass surveillance Obama administration controversies National Security Agency operations Privacy of telecommunications Privacy in the United States Surveillance Surveillance scandals United States national security policy War on terror {{Globalization-stub

See also

References