Singapore also spying on Malaysia, says intelligence whistleblower
The US embassy in Kuala Lumpur, where spying activities allegedly took place. - The Malaysian Insider pic, November 25, 2013.More top secret documents leaked by American whistleblower Edward Snowden have revealed that Singapore had aided the “5-Eyes”, the intelligence group behind a controversial spying activity in Malaysia.
Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad was quoted by Austalia's Fairfax news agency as saying that Singapore was a key “third party” to provide access to Malaysia's communications channel to the five nations accused of tapping telephone lines and monitoring communications networks in Malaysia.
The daily published a map showing the US’s stranglehold on trans-Pacific communications channels through interception facilities on the US’ West coast, Hawaii and Guam.
It depicts the facilities, linked between Australia and Japan, tapping all cable traffic across the Pacific Ocean, with Singapore being part of the set up.
The Fairfax report said that since the 1970s, Malaysia and Indonesia have been targeted by Australian and Singaporean intelligence, since most of its telecommunications and Internet traffic goes through the island city-state.
It was reported last August that's Singaporean intelligence partnered with the Defence Signals Directorate, Australia’s electronic espionage agency, to tap the SEA-ME-WE-3 cable that runs from Japan, passing through Singapore, Djibouti, Suez and the Straits of Gibraltar to Northern Germany.
This was allegedly facilitated by Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel), the city-state's government-owned telecomummincation giant.
On SingTel's board to represent the government is none other than Peter Ong, the man who was once in charge of Singapore's national security and intelligence coordination, and who is currently the country's civil service chief.
The Fairfax report further claimed that Singtel has expanded intelligence and defence ties between Australia and Singapore in the last 15 years.
Last month, Snowden, a former Central Intellligence Agency officer who is at the centre of some 200,000 leaked documents showing America's espionage worldwide revealed that Washington runs a monitoring station in its Kuala Lumpur embassy to tap and monitor phone and network communications.
Germany magazine Der Spiegel published a map showing the existence of some 90 electronic surveillance facilities worldwide, including in American embassies in Jakarta, Bangkok, Phnom Penh, and Yangon.
The map dated August 13, 2010, however did not show any such facilities in Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Britain, and Japan, Washington's closest allies.
Last August, Australian intelligence sources confirmed Snowden's claim that top-secret spying tool XKeyscore was used to spy on Malaysia and other Asia-Pacific countries.
XKeyscore boasted that the tool managed to capture 300 terrorists since 2008. - November 25, 2013.
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