A leaked post in the latest document dump from The Intercept's ‘SIDToday' archive—a series of top secret National Security Agency newsletters provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden—reveals that the United States discussed spying on Russian non-military targets with the help of the Norwegian Intelligence Service (NIS).
According to the document, published by the Intercept on 29 May, NSA officials met with leaders of NIS at their annual policy conference in April 2005 to discuss an array of mutual interests. These interests included support for the Norwegian Special Operations Forces deploying to Afghanistan and Kosovo, the development of mutual technical forces and identifying “strengths and weaknesses on the Russia target.”
“One highlight of the conference was a decision to begin, in earnest, cooperation on Russian civil targets,” says the newsletter, adding that the NSA had provided Norwegian spies with a “Russia posture paper” with an overview of the target.
At the time of the NSA and NIS meeting, Russian President Vladimir Putin had recently secured his second term in elections the previous year and was consolidating his domestic power. Months earlier at an international summit in Slovakia, US President George W. Bush and Putin had agreed to continue an open dialogue on finding ways to better integrate their commercial energy sectors.
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