Italians di Beppe Severgnini 
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America Snoops on Italian Emails, Text Messages and Conversations
COPASIR parliamentary defence committee seeks clarification. from junior minister for intelligence services Minniti at hearing tomorrow
ROME - Phone calls and computer communications belonging to millions of Italians are among those monitored by the US National Security Agency (NSA). Confirmation arrived three weeks ago when a delegation of parliamentarians from the COPASIR intelligence service monitoring committee made an official visit to the United States. Meetings with intelligence agency directors and congressional committee chairs confirmed that large-scale monitoring is a fact of life. Leading members of COPASIR are now seeking clarification from the government. The designated moment is Wednesday afternoon when the junior minister for the intelligence services, Marco Minniti, will visit COPASIR’s Palazzo San Macuto offices.
Information gathered by COPASIR concerns the PRISM surveillance system but the implications extend to a monitoring network that started years ago and is still active. Even Italy’s intelligence services can no longer deny that sensitive information is being gathered, although sources point out that data acquisition “has as its sole aim the fight against terrorism”. One intelligence community source says: “We have never had any evidence that this kind of monitoring might have involved political spying on Italian public figures. All our investigations into any such eventuality have proved negative”.
This view leaves COPASIR parliamentarians puzzled. Left Ecology Freedom (SEL) deputy Claudio Fava, who took part in the visit to the United States, is openly perplexed when he refers to what the NSA’s deputy director said about the need for “a complete overview of communications to and from the United States”. Mr Fava adds: “It’s a data trawling system based on various sensors. US intelligence experts explained that their main concern was to comply with American data protection laws and intervene to safeguard national security. Whether this conflicts with other countries’ laws is of no concern to them but it should be to us”.
In recent months, there have been rumours of spying on the Italian embassy in Washington but Italian intelligence sources deny them, albeit off the record. There is more to the issue, as Democratic Party (PD) COPASIR member Felice Casson points out: “The replies we received from top Italian intelligence officers are far from reassuring. The hearing with junior minister Minniti should serve to throw further light on the government’s position. It is clear that the United States has acquired information on individuals and institutions across Europe. What concrete elements exist to rule out that this has happened to politicians and institutions in Italy?”
Leading PD politician Ettore Rosato demanded an explanation from the government “because a few months ago, when the first Datagate revelations emerged, both the prime minister, Enrico Letta, and the foreign minister, Emma Bonino, professed astonishment at what had come out”. The impression is that Italy was told about this data gathering when collaboration between the Italian and American intelligence services was at its peak, the search was on for western hostages in the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan, and communications were shared through the SIGINT interception system. Italy appears to have assumed that this activity was continuing and failed to raise any objections to the nature of the data acquired.
In the wake of events in France, this stance looks difficult to maintain. The various intelligence agencies are in fact understood to have been in contact informally to verify whether there are any particularly sensitive cases and what further repercussions may follow in Europe.
English translation by Giles Watson