Big Brother Obama even bugged the UN headquarters.

A report in the German magazine Der Spiegel, the most important in Europe, reveals a bombshell: Barack Obama's government intercepted communications even from the United Nations headquarters in New York; the scandal of American eavesdropping has reached Brazil, as it was here that reporter Glenn Greenwald wrote the first reports with the revelations of Edward Snowden; his partner, David Miranda, was recently arbitrarily detained by British authorities; 50 years after Martin Luther King's historic speech, the Obama dream has turned into a nightmare.

August 25, 2013, 15:31 PMUpdated July 11, 2018, 13:07 pm

A report in the German magazine Der Spiegel, the most important in Europe, reveals a bombshell: Barack Obama's government intercepted communications even from the United Nations headquarters in New York; the scandal of American eavesdropping extends to Brazil, as it was here that reporter Glenn Greenwald wrote the first reports with the revelations of Edward Snowden; his partner, David Miranda, was recently arbitrarily detained by British authorities; 50 years after Martin Luther King's historic speech, the Obama dream turns into a nightmare (Photo: Leonardo Attuch)

BERLIN, Aug 25 (Reuters) - The U.S. National Security Agency bugged the United Nations headquarters in New York, the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel reported on Sunday, in the latest in a series of reports on U.S. espionage that has strained relations between Washington and its allies.

Citing secret files released by former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, which the magazine had access to, Der Spiegel said the revelations prove how the US systematically spies on other countries and institutions.

The publication said the documents show that U.S. intelligence agents wiretapped other countries and institutions, including the European Union and the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

In the summer of 2012, experts from the US National Security Agency (NSA) managed to break into the UN's videoconferencing system by breaking the encryption system, according to one of the documents cited by Der Spiegel.

"Data traffic gives us access to internal UN video conferences (yay!)", Der Spiegel quoted a document with that statement as saying, adding that in three weeks the number of decrypted communications rose from 12 to 458.

Internal files also show that the NSA was spying on the EU diplomatic mission in New York. Among the documents copied by Snowden from NSA computers are plans for the EU mission, its IT infrastructure, and servers.

According to the documents, the NSA runs a wiretapping program in more than 80 embassies and consulates worldwide, called the "Special Collection Service." "The surveillance is intense, well-organized, and has little or nothing to do with deterring terrorists," wrote Der Spiegel.