The GCHQ, sister organization to the NSA, set up a surveillance apparatus at the G20 convention held in London in 2009 and worked together the the NSA to target various delegates, including some allies.
The documents that provide hard evidence are part of the stash of material leaked by Edward Snowden.
The Guardian team of journalists working on this one, which was clearly part of an overall strategy for releasing material and informing the public and maximizing media coverage was the famed Nick Davies, Ewen MacAskill (who has worked on previous releases with Glenn Greenwald), Nick Hopkins, Julian Borger and James Ball.
This is a bombshell, given that the G8 meeting, held again in the UK, begins tomorrow. This is not going to go well.
GCHQ intercepted foreign politicians' communications at G20 summits
Exclusive: phones were monitored and fake internet cafes set up to gather information from allies in London in 2009
Foreign politicians and officials who took part in two G20 summit meetings in London in 2009 had their computers monitored and their phone calls intercepted on the instructions of their British government hosts, according to documents seen by the Guardian. Some delegates were tricked into using internet cafes which had been set up by British intelligence agencies to read their email traffic.
The revelation comes as Britain prepares to host another summit on Monday – for the G8 nations, all of whom attended the 2009 meetings which were the object of the systematic spying. It is likely to lead to some tension among visiting delegates who will want the prime minister to explain whether they were targets in 2009 and whether the exercise is to be repeated this week.
The disclosure raises new questions about the boundaries of surveillance by GCHQ and its American sister organisation, the National Security Agency, whose access to phone records and internet data has been defended as necessary in the fight against terrorism and serious crime. The G20 spying appears to have been organised for the more mundane purpose of securing an advantage in meetings. Named targets include long-standing allies such as South Africa and Turkey.
The Guardian has provided a small portion of two powerpoint slides with some of the information redacted, and they've also made it clear that they redacted other code words, presumably for security reasons.
Various capabilities were revealed, including the ability to monitor phone activity in real time and to create "graphs" that show who is talking to whom, projected on a large screen at a secret location where "analysts" can observe and can also communicate to "ministers" attending the convention. Another capability with a redacted code word was to be able to read people's emails in real time and grab them off of an email server without the owner being aware of it. They can even read the email before the owner does.
The British intelligence agencies, GCHQ and MI6, set up internet cafes for visiting delegates as a courtesy. Oh, and also to hoover up everything they typed, including their logins and passwords, that the report mentioned they would be able to use in the future as well.
They also broke into the smart phones of delegates.
The documents revealed who the agencies considered to be targets and some of them were allies like South Africa and Turkey.
Meanwhile, the NSA was grabbing communications from satellites when Dmitry Medvedev was calling home to Moscow and relaying that information back to GCHQ where it was disseminated to the ministers at the convention and I think it's logical to assume that the Brits and Americans were sharing intelligence throughout this whole thing, though the Guardian article does not say that.
A briefing paper said that some of Gordon Brown's goals were to secure the presidency of the G20 and to get intelligence after the 2008 banking crash.
"HMG's desired outcomes for its presidency of the G20"
There is more information in the article for everyone to read. We will hear more from apologists about how this is no big deal, we've heard of things like this before. Here's why this is a big deal:
1. We've never seen the hard evidence before
2. Various govt. officials and pundits just spent an entire Sunday morning on the news shows telling us that the only thing our massive surveillance apparatus is used for is counterterrorism and serious crime.
3. We have members of Congress telling us the same thing
4. It reveals some capabilities of the surveillance apparatus that might also be used against us
5. Some of the "targets" were our allies
6. Logins and passwords were stolen from the internet cafes from government delegates
7. Taxpayer funds from two nations in a recession were used to pay for all of this.
Common sense tells us that is not very likely at all that this apparatus is used only for terrorism or even that terrorism is its main purpose. What would you do with a massive surveillance data base and real time surveillance capabilities?
Bruce Bartlett calls it "economic espionage". I think that's probably pretty accurate, but I think it's probably still too narrow a term for it. I'm sure you can come up with a lot of your own ideas for what it is.
Update 1:
This is a speech by William Hague last week after he was summoned to Parliament. Excerpt of the transcript below.
Foreign Secretary statement to the House of Commons - GCHQ
Third, I want to set out how UK law is upheld in respect of information received from the United States and to address the specific questions about the role of GCHQ.
Since the 1940s GCHQ and its American equivalents, now the National Security Agency, have had a relationship that is unique in the world. This relationship has been and remains essential to the security of both nations, has stopped many terrorist and espionage plots against this country, and has saved many lives. The basic principles by which that cooperation operates have not changed over time.
Indeed I wish to emphasise to the House that while we have experienced an extremely busy period in intelligence and diplomacy in the last three years, the arrangements for oversight and the general framework for exchanging information with the United States are the same as under previous Governments.
The growing and diffuse nature of threats from terrorists, criminals or espionage has only increased the importance of the intelligence relationship with the United States. This was particularly the case in the run to the Olympics. The House will not be surprised that our activity to counter terrorism intensified and rose to a peak in the summer of last year.
It has been suggested GCHQ uses our partnership with the United States to get around UK law, obtaining information that they cannot legally obtain in the UK. I wish to be absolutely clear that this accusation is baseless.
Any data obtained by us from the US involving UK nationals is subject to proper UK statutory controls and safeguards, including the relevant sections of the Intelligence Services Act, the Human Rights Act and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.
Our intelligence-sharing work with the United States is subject to Ministerial and independent oversight and to scrutiny by the Intelligence and Security Committee.
Our Intelligence Agencies practise and uphold UK laws at all times, even when dealing with information from outside the UK.
[...]
Mr Speaker there is no doubt that Secret Intelligence, including the work of GCHQ, is vital to our country:
It enables us to detect threats against our country ranging from nuclear proliferation to cyber attack;
Our Agencies work to prevent serious and organised crime; and to protect our economy against those trying to steal intellectual property.
They disrupt complex plots against our country, such as when individuals travel abroad to gain terrorist training and prepare attacks.
They support the work of our Armed Forces overseas and help to protect the lives of our men and women in uniform.
And they work to help other countries lawfully to build the capacity and willingness to investigate and disrupt terrorist in their countries, before threats reach us in the United Kingdom.
We should never forget that threats are launched at us secretly, new weapons systems and tactics are developed secretly, and countries or terrorist groups that plan attacks or operations against us do so in secrecy.
So the methods we use to combat these threats must be secret, just as they must always be lawful.
[...]
The British people can be confident in the way our Agencies work to keep them safe. But would-be terrorists, those seeking to spy against this country or those who are the centre of organised crime should be aware that this country has the capability and partnerships to protect its citizens against the full range of threats in the 21st century, and that we will always do so in accordance with our laws and values but with constant resolve and determination.
Update 2: In response to commenters saying this is not important or relevant to our government because GCHQ is a British agency:
From the Guardian on Friday, June 7, 2013. (Thank you to smiley7 in the comments).
UK gathering secret intelligence via covert NSA operation
Exclusive: UK security agency GCHQ gaining information from world's biggest internet firms through US-run Prism programme
The UK's electronic eavesdropping and security agency, GCHQ, has been secretly gathering intelligence from the world's biggest internet companies through a covertly run operation set up by America's top spy agency, documents obtained by the Guardian reveal.
The documents show that GCHQ, based in Cheltenham, has had access to the system since at least June 2010, and generated 197 intelligence reports from it last year.
The US-run programme, called Prism, would appear to allow GCHQ to circumvent the formal legal process required to seek personal material such as emails, photos and videos from an internet company based outside the UK.
The use of Prism raises ethical and legal issues about such direct access to potentially millions of internet users, as well as questions about which British ministers knew of the programme.
[Emphasis added]