France spying on New Zealand - report
France's
secret service is monitoring phone calls, text messages, emails and faxes out
of New Zealand and Australia from two bases in the South Pacific, according to Paris newspaper, Le Monde.
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| Le Monde |
The data was being collected by the same people behind the
bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in 1985 - the Generale de la Securite Exterieure
(DGSE), the report said.
It said the service was
using the military base at La Tontouta Airport in New Caledonia and facilities
in Papeete, French Polynesia.
All the data was being
held in a supercomputer at the DGSE headquarters in Paris.
Under the headline
Revelations sur le Big Brother francais (Revelations about France's big
brother), the newspaper noted the revelations from US whistleblower Edward
Snowden about US spying in Europe.
But Le Monde said France
was guilty of doing the same.
"The (DGSE)
systematically collect electromagnetic signals from computers or phones in
France, as well as flows between French and abroad," it said.
"All emails, text
messages, telephone records, access to Facebook, Twitter, are then stored for
years."
The computer holding the
data occupied three floors and was open to the DGSE, the Central Directorate of
Interior Intelligence, the Directorate of Military Intelligence and the
Intelligence Service of the Prefecture of Police of Paris.
Le Monde said the DGSE
was mainly interested in the metadata - who makes calls, from where and to who(m).
