I’ve been entertained by the Guardian reports so far, will have to see how this plays out.
edit: Now I’m considering that the video the Guardian has up is just first intro some before they had the better articles up. Not sure, I need to compare the times, but until then comment retracted, and apologies for my hasty/ill-considered judgement
The main threat to South Africa is not internal far-right groups, it’s rampant government incompetence and corruption.
Calling these “surveillance leaks” seems a bit misleading to me, since I was expecting to read about electronic surveillance targeting civilians. The documents instead are all the result of good old fashioned human intelligence, and the stories so far look to be spying and communications between governments.
“Intelligence leaks” would be more accurate, but would not resonate so much with the post-Snowden news audience…
The Al Jazeera article mentions that the HUMINT world is much more humdrum then the SIGINT world (referencing Snowden), but then goes on to mention this involved many human agents whose lives might be jeopardized by the disclosure of the information… seems a little disjointed.
What is humdrum seems the revelations [so far]. Not surprising that the US suddenly pushed very strongly for information on Al Qaeda, nor surprising about the over reaching push against Iran. Misreporting on Iran’s nuclear capabilities is also well known. Probably some of that is directed at Netanyahu’s continuing influence in Middle Eastern affairs and global, Western responses.
(Full disclosure: I believe it is all a disorganized mess. Of course the US pushed SA strongly for information on Al Qaeda post 911. They did this for their own national interests. This betrayed their lack of preparation, and also the over focus they put on Al Qaeda. Isolation of Iran is not without purpose, but in no small part simply favoring one devil over another. That is Sunni allies really dislike Iran and are in a deep regional cold war with them. Allies are currently sided with Sunnis, even though many Sunni forces are aligned with ISIS and other notable nasties. Isolating Iran is a dangerous policy, though their background is full of bad things they have been rebuffed by US and allies for moves towards peace. If Sunni rebels or ISIS win Jordan or worse, Syria, the whole region is gone.)
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