Spying, multilaterally (updated)

As he digests the WikiLeaks feast, Carne Ross is surprised at how much emphasis the United States places on gathering intelligence at the United Nations. That aspect of the document release is already getting plenty of media play, much of it with the implication that there’s something particularly shocking about spying at and on the U.N.

Folks will remember that there was a mini-scandal about this shortly before the Iraq War, when the Observer reported that the U.S. and Britain were snooping on key U.N. officials and Security Council members (information on the spying campaign was leaked by a junior British intelligence official opposed to the Iraq war). My subsequent conversations with diplomats about that incident persuaded me that the revelations were much more shocking to the general public and to the British newspaper editors who gave the story huge play than to diplomats at the U.N., who assume that much of what they say is recorded. One Eastern European U.N. ambassador told me he would have been offended if people hadn’t been listening in on his conversations. As Ross points out, the real story here is not the fact of the spying, but the fact that confidential cables were released. The biggest losers, as Peter Spiro argues, may be future diplomatic historians. 

It’s one thing to understand that your work will come to light 25 years hence, when you (and your interlocutors) will either be dead or retired, too old much to care; or else flattered to see your handiwork become the stuff of history.  It’s another to have to worry about something being disclosed that might affect your ability to function in your next post (or whether you’ll get one at all).  The result will be less interesting stuff on paper for the record, more stuff over the phone or scattered in the diplomatic equivalent of tweets.  Diplomatic historians will be thrilled with this unexpected Thanksgiving weekend gift, but they may have a lot less to work with in the future.

Update:  Mark Leon Goldberg reads through the Clinton memo on information-gathering at the U.N. and finds its ultimate aims to be downright progressive:

After reading through the lengthy cable I can’t help but feel…relieved. Aside from a few extra-curricular activities (like collecting Ban Ki Moon’s frequent flier number) these efforts were by and large directed toward making the United Nations a more effective institution.  This is particularly apparent in regard to US intelligence collecting on human rights and peacekeeping issues.

For the most part, the United States engaged in the kind of well intentioned intel gathering activities that most in the human rights community can get behind.