Bug Bug Buggy

March 19, 2003 4:38 AM

Bug Bug Buggy - Electronic bugging devices have been found at offices used by French and German delegations at European Union headquarters in Brussels. I think I can guess where fingers will get pointed....
posted by tomcosgrave (11 comments total)

... at the Flemish?
posted by jpburns at 5:10 AM on March 19, 2003

tomcosgrave: Even I have to say "So what?" Countries spy on each other. They do it every single second of every single day. Link to a picture of Bush holding a glass to the wall. Give us a website detailing the type of foot powder Blair uses. Something. Not to an early tiny article on the BBC.
posted by ?! at 5:11 AM on March 19, 2003

Here are three web sites to add to your post: phone bugging equipment, Echelon spy program, and Covertly Recording Telephone Conversations.
posted by ?! at 5:19 AM on March 19, 2003

As Slate points out, it's kind of disingenous to complain in a presidential address that UN weapons inspectors were "systematically bugged" by Iraq when the US is bugging UN Security Council members.
posted by Vidiot at 5:49 AM on March 19, 2003

Shaken, not stirred please [sips his freedom martini]
posted by elpapacito at 7:00 AM on March 19, 2003

Reuters item with more countries (including the UK) finding the little,er, buggers in their suites.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 7:18 AM on March 19, 2003

Please tell us that our government is not this low, this foolish, this loutish and brutish to do this bugging. All this instead of meeting in person and talking diplomacy.
posted by Red58 at 8:15 AM on March 19, 2003

Let's not all jump to conclusions. Frankly, I don't see why this even deserves and FPP. All we know of is a potential issue.

Sure, it could be the US. It could also be the UK, France, Germany, Russia, China, Israel and any number of other countries. EU members would want to spy on each other. Especially as complex negotiations proceed as to how to further form the Union. Russia has a clear motivation to spy on the EU. As do we.

But blindly assuming its America, just because Le Figaro has made an accusation based on no hard facts is just illogical.
posted by pjgulliver at 8:25 AM on March 19, 2003

There are many indications that they were installed with the building (in) 1994-95. It is naturally very serious that someone has installed illegal listening devices in our building," Petersson said.

Given the laughable state of the US Intelligence agencies, I doubt that they were prescient enough to have done this back then in anticipation for the current situation.

Like I said, it was probably the Flemish.

Speaking of Flemish:
Q. What's a good example of Phlegmish cooking?
A. Spit-roasted chicken.
posted by jpburns at 8:29 AM on March 19, 2003

The Flemish do have a dastardly history in this sort of thing. See: Flemish Bugs
posted by taz at 9:01 AM on March 19, 2003

After watching last night's British Government Parliament debate on TV, I became shocked at just how childish and badly-behaved these politicians can be.

They spend as much time making cheap jokes at each other and slamming the reputations of their rivals as they spend engaged in serious debate about this very serious impending war.

So it doesn't surprise me that these people (a lot of whom come across like immature slingshot-wielding public schoolboys) might also employ people who would engage in some dastardly spying.

But what I don't get is what makes politicians so f***ing tragic, corrupt and immoral. Would it happen to all of us if we were in the job? Would any of us start asking our colleagues in the intelligence services to bug our equivalents in foreign governments? I hope not. I wish these people would get a life.
posted by skylar at 12:45 PM on March 19, 2003