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<h1 id="reader-title">NSA Spies on Venezuela's Oil Company,
Snowden Leak Reveals</h1>
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<pre style="position: absolute; left: -99999px;">18 November 2015
This content was originally published by teleSUR at the following address:
<a href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/NSA-Spies-on-Venezuelas-Oil-Company-Snowden-Leak-Reveals-20151118-0010.html">"http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/NSA-Spies-on-Venezuelas-Oil-Company-Snowden-Leak-Reveals-20151118-0010.html"</a>. If you intend to use it, please cite the source and provide a link to the original article. <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.teleSURtv.net/english">www.teleSURtv.net/english</a>
</pre>
<pre style="position: absolute; left: -99999px;">18 November 2015
This content was originally published by teleSUR at the following address:
<a href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/NSA-Spies-on-Venezuelas-Oil-Company-Snowden-Leak-Reveals-20151118-0010.html">"http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/NSA-Spies-on-Venezuelas-Oil-Company-Snowden-Leak-Reveals-20151118-0010.html"</a>. If you intend to use it, please cite the source and provide a link to the original article. <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.teleSURtv.net/english">www.teleSURtv.net/english</a>
N</pre>
<p itemprop="description alternativeHeadline"
class="subtitle">November 18, 2015<br>
</p>
<p itemprop="description alternativeHeadline"
class="subtitle">U.S. intelligence agents posing as
diplomats in Caracas helped an NSA analyst try to crack
open PDVSA’s computer network.</p>
<div itemprop="articleBody" class="txt_newworld">
<p>The U.S. National Security Agency accessed the internal
communications of Venezuela's state-owned oil company,
Petroleos de Venezuela and acquired sensitive data it
planned to exploit in order to spy on the company’s top
officials, according to a highly classified NSA document
that reveals the operation was carried out in concert
with the U.S. embassy in Caracas. </p>
<p>The March 2011 document, labeled, “top secret,” and
provided by former NSA contractor-turned-whistleblower
Edward Snowden, is being reported on in an exclusive
partnership between teleSUR and The Intercept. </p>
<p>Drafted by an NSA signals development analyst, the
document explains that PDVSA’s network, already
compromised by U.S. intelligence, was further
infiltrated after an NSA review in late 2010 “showed
telltale signs that things were getting stagnant on the
Venezuelan Energy target set.” Most intelligence “was
coming from warranted collection,” which likely refers
to communications that were intercepted as they passed
across U.S. soil. According to the analyst, “what little
was coming from other collectors,” or warrantless
surveillance, “was pretty sparse.” </p>
<p>Beyond efforts to infiltrate Venezuela’s most important
company, the leaked NSA document highlights the
existence of a secretive joint operation between the NSA
and the Central Intelligence Agency operating out of the
U.S. embassy in Caracas. A fortress-like building just a
few kilometers from PDVSA headquarters, the embassy sits
on the top of a hill that gives those inside a
commanding view of the Venezuelan capital. </p>
<p>Last year,<em> </em>Der Spiegel published <a
href="http://www.spiegel.de/media/media-34100.pdf">top-secret
documents</a> detailing the state-of-the-art
surveillance equipment that the NSA and CIA deploy to
embassies around the world. That intelligence on PDVSA
had grown “stagnant” was concerning to the U.S.
intelligence community for a number of reasons, which
its powerful surveillance capabilities could help
address. </p>
<p>“Venezuela has some of the largest oil and natural gas
reserves in the world,” the NSA document states, with
revenue from oil and gas accounting “for roughly one
third of GDP” and “more than half of all government
revenues.” </p>
<p>“To understand PDVSA,” the NSA analyst explains, “is to
understand the economic heart of Venezuela.” </p>
<p>Increasing surveillance on the leadership of PDVSA, the
most important company in a South American nation seen
as hostile to U.S. corporate interests, was a priority
for the undisclosed NSA division to which the analyst
reported. “Plainly speaking,” the analyst writes, they
“wanted PDVSA information at the highest possible levels
of the corporation – namely, the president and members
of the Board of Directors.” </p>
<p>Given a task, the analyst got to work and, with the
help of “sheer luck,” found his task easier than
expected. </p>
<p>It began simply enough: with a visit to PDVSA’s
website, “where I clicked on 'Leadership' and wrote down
the names of the principals who would become my target
list.” From there, the analyst “dumped the names” into
PINWALE, the NSA’s primary database of previously
intercepted digital communications, automatically culled
using a dictionary of search terms called “selectors.”
It was an almost immediate success. </p>
<p>In addition to email traffic, the analyst came across
over 10,000 employee contact profiles full of email
addresses, phone numbers, and other useful targeting
information, including the usernames and passwords for
over 900 PDVSA employees. One profile the analyst found
was for <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Venezuelan-Foreign-Minister-Says-US-Sanctions-Will-Fail-20141219-0014.html">Rafael
Ramirez</a>, PDVSA's president from 2004 to 2014 and
Venezuela's current envoy to the United Nations. A
similar entry turned up for Luis Vierma, the company’s
former vice president of exploration and production. </p>
<p>“Now, even my old eyes could see that these things were
a goldmine,” the analyst wrote. The entries were full of
“work, home, and cell phones, email addresses, LOTS!”
This type of information, referred to internally as
“selectors,” can then be “tasked” across the NSA’s wide
array of surveillance tools so that any relevant
communications will be saved. </p>
<p>According to the analyst, the man to whom he reported
“was thrilled!” But “it is what happened next that
really made our day.” </p>
<p>“As I was analyzing the metadata,” the analyst
explains, “I clicked on the 'From IP' and noticed
something peculiar,” all of the employee profile, “over
10,000 of them, came from the same IP!!!” That, the
analyst determined, meant “I had been looking at
internal PDVSA comms all this time!!! I fired off a few
emails to F6 here and in Caracas, and they confirmed
it!” </p>
<p>“Metadata” is a broad term that can include the phone
numbers a target has dialed, the duration of the call
and from where it was placed, as well as the Wi-Fi
networks used to access the Internet, the websites
visited and the times accessed. That information can
then be used to identify the user. </p>
<p>F6 is the NSA code name for a joint operation with the
CIA known as the Special Collection Service, based in
Beltsville, Maryland – and with agents posing as
diplomats in dozens of U.S. embassies around the world,
including Caracas, Bogota and Brasilia. </p>
<p>In 2013, Der Spiegel <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/cover-story-how-nsa-spied-on-merkel-cell-phone-from-berlin-embassy-a-930205.html">reported
that</a> it was this unit of the U.S. intelligence
bureaucracy that had installed, within the U.S. embassy
in Berlin, “sophisticated listening devices with which
they can intercept virtually every popular method of
communication: cellular signals, wireless networks and
satellite communication.” The article suggested this is
likely how the U.S. tapped into German Chancellor Angela
Merkel's cellphone. </p>
<p>SCS at the U.S. embassy in Caracas played an active
role throughout the espionage activities described in
the NSA document. “I have been coordinating with
Caracas,” the NSA analyst states, “who have been
surveying their environment and sticking the results
into XKEYSCORE.” </p>
<p>XKEYSCORE, <a target="_blank"
href="https://theintercept.com/2015/07/01/nsas-google-worlds-private-communications/">as
reported by</a> The Intercept, processes a continuous
“flow of Internet traffic from fiber optic cables that
make up the backbone of the world's communication
network,” storing the data for 72 hours on a “rolling
buffer” and “sweep[ing] up countless people's Internet
searches, emails, documents, usernames and passwords.” </p>
<p>The NSA’s combined databases are, essentially, “a very
ugly version of Google with half the world’s information
in it,” explained Matthew Green, a professor at the
Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute, in an
email. “They’re capturing so much information from their
cable taps, that even the NSA analysts don’t know what
they’ve got,” he added, “an analyst has to occasionally
step in and manually dig through the data” to see if the
information they want has already been collected. </p>
<p>That is exactly what the NSA analyst did in the case of
PDVSA, which turned up even more leads to expand their
collection efforts. </p>
<p>“I have been lucky enough to find several juicy pdf
documents in there,” the NSA analyst wrote, “one of
which has just been made a report.” </p>
<p>That report, dated January 2011, suggests a familiarity
with the finances of PDVSA beyond that which was public
knowledge, noting a decline in the theft and loss of
oil. </p>
<p>“In addition, I have discovered a string that carries
user ID's and their passwords, and have recovered over
900 unique user/password combinations” the analyst
wrote, which he forwarded to the NSA’s elite hacking
team, Targeted Access Operations, along with other
useful information and a “targeting request to see if we
can pwn this network and especially, the boxes of
PDVSA's leadership.” </p>
<p>“Pwn,” in this context, means to successfully hack and
gain full access to a computer or network. “Pwning” a
computer, or “box,” would allow the hacker to monitor a
user’s every keystroke. </p>
<p><strong>A History of US Interest in Venezuelan Affairs
</strong> </p>
<p>PDVSA has long been a target of U.S. intelligence
agencies and the subject of intense scrutiny from U.S.
diplomats. A <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09CARACAS214_a.html">February
17, 2009, cable</a>, sent from the U.S. ambassador in
Caracas to Washington and obtained by WikiLeaks, shows
that PDVSA employees, were probed during visa interviews
about their company's internal operations. The embassy
was particularly interested in the PDVSA’s strategy
concerning litigation over Venezuela's 2007
nationalization of the Cerro Negro oil project – and
billions of dollars in assets owned by U.S. oil giant
ExxonMobil. </p>
<p>“According to a PDVSA employee interviewed following
his visa renewal, PDVSA is aggressively preparing its
international arbitration case against ExxonMobil,” the
cable notes. </p>
<p>A year before, U.S. State Department spokesman Sean
McCormack told reporters that the U.S. government “fully
support the efforts of ExxonMobil to get a just and fair
compensation package for their assets.” But, he added,
“We are not involved in that dispute.” </p>
<p>ExxonMobil is also at the center of a border dispute
between Guyana and Venezuela. In May 2015, the company
announced it had made a “<a
href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/analysis/Exxon-Mobil-Stirs-Border-Dispute-Between-Venezuela-and-Guyana-20150706-0016.html">significant
oil discovery</a>” in an offshore location claimed by
both countries. The U.S. ambassador to Guyana has
offered support for that country’s claim. </p>
<p>More recently, the U.S. government has begun leaking
information to media about allegations against top
Venezuelan officials. </p>
<p>In October, The Wall Street Journal reported in a
piece, “<a
href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-investigates-venezuelan-oil-giant-1445478342">U.S.
Investigates Venezuelan Oil Giant</a>,” that “agents
from the Department of Homeland Security, the Drug
Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and other agencies” had recently met to
discuss “various PDVSA-related probes.” The
“wide-ranging investigations” reportedly have to do with
whether former PDVSA President Rafael Ramirez and other
executives accepted bribes. </p>
<p>Leaked news of the investigations came less than two
months before Dec. 9 parliamentary elections in
Venezuela. Ramirez, for his part, has rejected the
accusations, which <a
href="https://twitter.com/RRamirezVE/status/657250284398342144">he
claims</a> are part of a “new campaign that wants to
claim from us the recovery and revolutionary
transformation of PDVSA.” Thanks to Chavez, he added,
Venezuela’s oil belongs to “the people.” </p>
<p>In its piece on the accusations against him, The Wall
Street Journal notes that during Ramirez’s time in
office PDVSA became “an arm of the late President Hugo
Chavez’s socialist revolution,” with money made from the
sale of petroleum used “to pay for housing, appliances
and food for the poor.” </p>
<p>The former PDVSA president is not the only Venezuelan
official to be accused of corruption by the U.S.
government. In May 2015, the U.S. Department of Justice
<a
href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Venezuelan-Parliamentary-Head-to-Sue-Over-False-Drug-Claims-20150531-0019.html">accused
Diosdado Cabello</a>, president of the Venezuelan
National Assembly, of being involved in cocaine
trafficking and money laundering. Former Interior
Minister Tarek El Aissami, the former director of
military intelligence, Hugo Carvajal, and Nestor
Reverol, head of the National Guard, have also faced
similar accusations from the U.S. government. </p>
<p>None of these accusations against high-ranking
Venezuelan officials has led to any indictments. </p>
<p>The timing of the charges, made in the court of public
opinion rather than a courthouse, has led some to
believe there’s another motive. </p>
<p>“These people despise us,” Venezuelan President Nicolas
Maduro <a
href="http://www.telesurtv.net/news/Venezuela-presentara-demanda-en-los-EE.UU.-contra-el-decreto-emitido-por-Obama-20151029-0035.html">said
in October</a>. He and his supporters argue the goal
of the U.S. government’s selective leaks is to undermine
his party ahead of the upcoming elections, helping
install a right-wing opposition seen as friendlier to
U.S. interests. “They believe that we belong to them.” </p>
<p>Ulterior motives or not, by the NSA’s own admission the
intelligence it gathers on foreign targets may be
disseminated widely among U.S. officials who may have
more than justice on their minds. </p>
<p>According to <a
href="https://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/nsacss_policies/PPD-28.pdf">a
guide</a> issued by the NSA on January 12, 2015, the
communications of non-U.S. persons may be captured in
bulk and retained if they are said to contain
information concerning a plot against the United States
or evidence of, “Transnational criminal threats,
including illicit finance and sanctions evasion.” Any
intelligence that is gathered may then be passed on to
other agencies, such as the DEA, if it “is related to a
crime that has been, is being, or is about to be
committed.” </p>
<p>Spying for the sole purpose of protecting the interests
of a corporation is ostensibly not allowed, though there
are exceptions that do allow for what might be termed
economic espionage. </p>
<p>“The collection of foreign private commercial
information or trade secrets is authorized only to
protect nation the national security of the United
States or its partners and allies,” the agency states.
It is not supposed to collect such information “to
afford a competitive advantage to U.S. companies and
U.S. business sectors commercially.” However, “Certain
economic purposes, such as identifying trade or
sanctions violations or government influence or
direction, shall not constitute competitive advantage.”
</p>
<p>In May 2011, two months after the leaked document was
published in NSA’s internal newsletter, the U.S. State
Department announced it was imposing sanctions on PDVSA
– a state-owned enterprise, or one that could be said to
be subject to “government influence or direction” – for
business it conducted with the Islamic Republic of Iran
between December 2010 and March 2011. The department did
not say how it obtained information about the
transactions, allegedly worth US$50 million. </p>
<p>Intelligence gathered with one stated purpose can also
serve another, and the NSA’s already liberal rules on
the sharing of what it gathers can also be bent in times
of perceived emergency. </p>
<p>“If, due to unanticipated or extraordinary
circumstances, NSA determines that it must take action
in apparent departure from these procedures to protect
the national security of the United States, such action
may be taken” – after either consulting other branches
of the intelligence bureaucracy. “If there is
insufficient time for approval,” however, it may
unilaterally take action. </p>
<p>Beyond the obvious importance of oil, leaked diplomatic
cables show PDVSA was also on the U.S. radar because of
its importance to Venezuela’s left-wing government. In
2009, <a
href="https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09CARACAS564_a.html">another
diplomatic cable</a> obtained by WikiLeaks shows the
U.S. embassy in Caracas viewed PDVSA as crucial to the
political operations of long-time foe and former
President Hugo Chavez. In April 2002, Chavez was briefly
overthrown in a coup that, according to The New York
Times, as many as 200 officials in the George W. Bush
administration – briefed by the CIA – knew about days
before it was carried out. </p>
<p>The Venezuelan government was not informed of the plot.
</p>
<p>“Since the December 2002-February 2003 oil sector
strike, PDVSA has put itself at the service of President
Chavez's Bolivarian revolution, funding everything from
domestic programs to Chavez's geopolitical endeavors,”
the 2009 cable states. </p>
<p>Why might that be a problem, from the U.S. government's
perspective? Another missive from the U.S. embassy in
Caracas, this one sent in 2010, sheds some light: Chavez
“appears determined to shape the hemisphere according to
his vision of 'socialism in the 21st century,'” it
states, “a vision that is almost the mirror image of
what the United States seeks.” </p>
<p>There was a time when not so long ago when the U.S. had
an ally in Venezuela, one that shared its vision for the
hemisphere – and invited a U.S. firm run by former U.S.
intelligence officials to directly administer its
information technology operations. </p>
<p>Amid a push for privatization under former Venezuelan
President Rafael Caldera, in January 1997 PDVSA decided
to outsource its IT system to a joint a company called
Information, Business and Technology, or INTESA – the
product of a joint venture between the oil company,
which owned a 40 percent share of the new corporation,
and the major U.S.-based defense contractor Science
Applications International Corporation, or SAIC, which
controlled 60 percent. </p>
<p>SAIC has close, long-standing ties to the U.S.
intelligence community. At the time of its dealings with
Venezuela, the company’s director was retired Admiral
Bobby Inman. Before coming to SAIC, Inman served as the
U.S. Director of Naval Intelligence and Vice Director of
the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency. Inman also served
as deputy director of the CIA and, from 1977 to 1981, as
director of the NSA. </p>
<p>In his book, “Changing Venezuela by Taking Power: The
History and Policies of the Chavez Government,” author
Gregory Wilpert notes that Inman was far from the only
former intelligence official working for SAIC in a
leadership role. Joining him were two former U.S.
Secretaries of Defense, William Perry and Melvin Laird,
a former director of the CIA, John Deutsch, and a former
head of both the CIA and the Defense Department, Robert
Gates. The company that those men controlled, INTESA,
was given the job of managing “all of PDVSA’s data
processing needs.” </p>
<p>In 2002, Venezuela, now led by a government seeking to
roll back the privatizations of its predecessor, chose
not to renew SAIC’s contract for another five years, a
decision the company protested to the U.S. Overseas
Private Investment Corporation, which insures the
overseas investments of U.S. corporations. In 2004, the
U.S. agency ruled that by canceling its contract with
SAIC the Venezuelan government had “expropriated” the
company’s investment. </p>
<p>However, before that ruling, and before its operations
were reincorporated by PDVSA, the company that SAIC
controlled, INTESA, played a key role in an <a
href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/analysis/The-47-Hour-Coup-That-Changed-Everything-20150411-0018.html">opposition-led
strike</a> aimed at shutting down the Venezuelan oil
industry. In December 2002, eight months after the
failed coup attempt and the same month its contract was
set to expire, INTESA, the Venezuelan Ministry of
Communication and Information alleges, “exercised its
ability to control our computers by paralyzing the
charge, discharge, and storage of crude at different
terminals within the national grid.” The government
alleges INTESA, which possessed the codes needed to
access those terminals, refused to allow non-striking
PDVSA employees access to the company’s control systems.
</p>
<p>“The result,” Wilpert noted, “was that PDVSA could not
transfer its data processing to new systems, nor could
it process its orders for invoices for oil shipments.
PDVSA ended up having to process such things manually
because passwords and the general computing
infrastructure were unavailable, causing the strike to
be much more damaging to the company than it would have
been if the data processing had been in PDVSA’s hands.”
</p>
<p>PDVSA’s IT operations would become a strictly internal
affair soon thereafter, though one never truly free from
the prying eyes of hostile outsiders. </p>
</div>
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