WP: US allies respond ‘obediently’ to secret intelligence file leaks
The West doubted that the United States would still be able to store classified data, but it will not reduce its cooperation due to the enormous resources of American intelligence, writes the Washington Post.
Citing an unnamed source, the publication reports that the leak of secret US intelligence files has caused damage to US relations with key allies. The newspaper’s interlocutors among Western officials are perplexed: how a non-high-ranking American soldier could have had access to a multitude of secret intelligence documents.
At the same time, as the publication notes, US allies accepted the situation “with resignation”, contrary to the revelations of ex-National Security Agency (NSA) employee Edward Snowden 10 years ago.
Now the spy revelations from foreign leaders aren’t as shocking as they were in the Snowden scandal, another source said. The authorities of the countries cooperating with the USA have resigned themselves to the fact that everyone spies on everyone and takes it for the “nature of things”.
What happened now ‘raises doubts about how intelligence is protected and managed’, a European source said, but stressed that periodic leaks are the price of cooperating with an intelligence giant like the states -United.
Another European official said the United States was and remains an important intelligence partner and therefore cooperation with Washington is essential for the national security of the United States’ European partners.
WP notes that the United States has an unprecedented intelligence collection system built over decades for “untold billions of dollars.” According to the publication, no US ally has the same interception capabilities and global coverage comparable to NSA assets.
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