Leaked U.S. Documents Reveal Wiretapping of Korea

Authored by english.chosun.com and submitted by TheThirdDumpling

A leaked cache of top-secret U.S. documents suggests that Washington wiretapped Korea's Office of National Security.

The New York Times last Friday reported that parts of a Ukraine-related cache of CIA documents circulating on social media detail Korea's "internal debates about whether to give the U.S. artillery shells for use in Ukraine, violating Seoul's policy on providing lethal aid."

The leaked documents involve U.S. assessments of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and arms supplies to Kiev, and some of them seem to contain information gathered by wiretapping Korea, Israel and other U.S. allies.

According to the Washington Post, one contains comments made during a meeting of Korea's Office of National Security showing that Seoul "grappled" in early March with a U.S. request to provide artillery ammunition to Ukraine.

According to the daily, the report cites "signals intelligence" to the effect that "Korea's national security adviser suggested possibly selling the munitions to Poland, which controls the main weapons supply routes, since it was the U.S. goal to get the material to Ukraine quickly."

Korean officials apparently worried that U.S. President Joe Biden would call personally to push the demand.

The presidential office held a meeting on Sunday to review the leaks and discuss a response. A senior official from the presidential office said the government "will look at a response by reviewing past precedents in other countries."

The U.S. has been caught eavesdropping on allies before, tapping the phones of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron.

The U.S. government is investigating the source of the leak, which consists of photographed pdf printouts that appear in some cases to have been altered. Some are pointing the finger at Russia for leaking the classified documents in an attempt to drive a rift between the U.S. and its allies.

The New York Times said many of the online channels that distributed the classified information on Discord and Twitter have pro-Russian leanings, while military experts said Moscow appears to have forged certain documents such as estimates of Russian and Ukrainian losses.

Korea found itself in a difficult position providing weapons directly to Ukraine due to pacts with both the U.S. and Russia and dodged its own ban by supplying ammunition and other arms to European countries which they could in turn supply to Ukraine.

The presidential office said there is "no change" in Seoul's position on arms supplies to Ukraine.

mysticalcookiedough on April 10th, 2023 at 12:20 UTC »

This behaviour is actually nothing new. Just remember what Edward Snowden leaked around 10 years ago.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosures_(2013%E2%80%93present)

Rababaja on April 10th, 2023 at 12:05 UTC »

Dropbox' privacy policy literally states they are allowed to manually open and review your files in order to help with advertising targeting, etc. Your files, calls, messages, etc. are never private.

If you are using the internet in normal ways, you are under full surveillance.

It requires a lot of effort to avoid surveillance.

TheThirdDumpling on April 10th, 2023 at 11:02 UTC »

Submission statement:

"At least two of these documents involve the eavesdropping on high-ranking foreign affairs and security officials of the Yoon Suk Yeol administration regarding Washington’s requests for providing weapons to Ukraine"

"Lee noted that Seoul cannot go against its own stance of not providing lethal weapons. Thus, the only option is to change its stance. However, Kim raised concerns that such a move could be interpreted as a compromise between Yoon's state visit to the U.S. and the ammunition deal, while he "suggested the possibility" of selling munitions to Poland, according to the report. "

This is on all major Korean news site today. So it is indeed very significant. We are all grown adult, we all know spying on friends and foes alike isn't new, although this is not just any spying, it is actual wiretapping of ROK government.