Washington is running a secret intelligence campaign
targeted at the leadership of the United Nations, including the
secretary general, Ban Ki-moon and the permanent security council representatives from China,
Russia, France and the UK.
A classified directive which appears to blur the line between diplomacy and spying was issued to US
diplomats under Hillary Clinton's name in July 2009, demanding forensic technical details about the
communications systems used by top UN officials, including passwords and personal encryption keys
used in private and commercial networks for official communications.
It called for detailed biometric information "on key UN officials, to include undersecretaries, heads of
specialised agencies and their chief advisers, top SYG [secretary general] aides, heads of peace
operations and political field missions, including force commanders" as well as intelligence on Ban's
"management and decision-making style and his influence on the secretariat". A parallel intelligence
directive sent to diplomats in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi
said biometric data included DNA, fingerprints and iris scans.
Washington also wanted credit card numbers, email addresses, phone, fax and pager numbers and
even frequent-flyer account numbers for UN figures and "biographic and biometric information on UN
Security Council permanent representatives".
The secret "national human intelligence collection directive" was sent to US missions at the UN in
New York, Vienna and Rome; 33 embassies and consulates, including those in London, Paris and
Moscow.
The operation targeted at the UN appears to have involved all of Washington's main intelligence
agencies. The CIA's clandestine service, the US Secret Service and the FBI were included in the
"reporting and collection needs" cable alongside the state department under the heading "collection
requirements and tasking".
The leak of the directive is likely to spark questions about the legality of the operation and about
whether state department diplomats are expected to spy. The level of technical and personal detail
demanded about the UN top team's communication systems could be seen as laying the groundwork
for surveillance or hacking operations. It requested "current technical specifications, physical layout
and planned upgrades to telecommunications infrastructure and information systems, networks and
technologies used by top officials and their support staff", as well as details on private networks used
for official communication, "to include upgrades, security measures, passwords, personal encryption
keys and virtual private network versions used".
The UN has previously asserted that bugging the secretary general is illegal, citing the 1946 UN
convention on privileges and immunities which states: "The premises of the United Nations shall be
inviolable. The property and assets of the United Nations, wherever located and by whomsoever
held, shall be immune from search, requisition, confiscation, expropriation and any other form of
interference, whether by executive, administrative, judicial or legislative action".