Snowden reveals connection between NSA and Israel's spying on Palestinians

JERUSALEM, Sept. 21 (UPI) -- The "refusniks," a group of dissenting spies from Israel's Unit 8200 agency, spoke out against Israel's spying on Palestinians last Friday. The group of 43 dissenters wrote a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the head of Israel's army claiming the citizens they were spying on posed no security threat and should not be spied on any longer. Now, Snowden documents reveal the NSA may have had a hand in the spying that was done.

NPR's Arun Rath spoke with James Bamford, a journalist who's interviewed Snowden recently, and he explained documents from Snowden that show the NSA spied on Palestinian-Americans and shared the information with Israel without any censoring of names, which is something that is usually done.

"You have a lot of Palestinian-Americans who happen to live in the United States, and if their private communications with relatives in Israel and occupied Palestine, then that puts them at great risk, puts their relatives at great risk," Bamford told Arun Rath. "If they talk about confidential things in an email, or in a telephone call, what right does the U.S. government have to give that information to a government that's basically hostile to them?"

It remains unclear if the NSA has been directly involved in spying on Palestinians not located within the borders of the United States.

2014 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

Read more:
Snowden reveals connection between NSA and Israel's spying on Palestinians