Mexico: A bitter return for our cooperation

last updated 8 January 2015

Raymundo Riva Palacio

El Diario

Mexico can get angry now, said Raymundo Riva Palacio. After the initial revelations of the NSA’s spying on governments, Brazil sputtered its outrage in public rants, while Mexico opted for a “discreet, low profile” reaction. Now, though, it’s time to turn up the volume. This week, Germany’s Der Spiegel reported that the NSA spied on former Mexican President Felipe Calderón while he was in office, reading his personal emails to his cabinet and listening in on his phone calls. Operation Flat Liquid, as it was dubbed, “had nothing to do with terrorism or al Qaida,” and indeed there is no indication given in the documents as to “what mandate the NSA had to snoop in Mexican domestic politics.” There is, however, plenty of gloating that Calderón’s office was “a lucrative source of information.” It’s all the more galling since Calderón braved domestic criticism to allow U.S. drug enforcement and intelligence agents unprecedented access to Mexican territory and Mexican intelligence in the countries’ joint fight against drug cartels. In return, we now know, “Washington laughed at him and betrayed him.” The massive extent of the spying on the presidential office amounts to “open interference in Mexican affairs,” and the snooping is surely ongoing. Everything President Enrique Peña Nieto says and does echoes in Washington. Is he angry now?