Secret agreements allow secretive intelligence agencies in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the USA to Spy on the World
The Five Eyes brings the UK, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand into the world’s most complete and comprehensive intelligence alliance
Despite the fact that the alliance is known throughout the world and its existence is subject of endless debates, the real knowledge of how the Five Eyes works is still clouded by the security measures that involves almost everything related to the Five Eyes.
The Five Eyes (FVEY) is widely regarded as the world’s most significant intelligence alliance. The origins of it can be traced back to the context of the Second World War and by its necessity of sharing vital information mainly between Britain and the United States so both countries could enhance their close war effort.
For more than 70 years, the once-secret post-war alliance of the five English-speaking nations has been an infrastructure of surveillance with a global reach and ageing is not a problem for the FVEY, which remains one of the most complex and far-reaching intelligence and espionage alliances in our history.
Yossi Cohen during a reception held at the Israeli foreign ministry in Jerusalem, in May 2018.
According to two sources, there were even suspicions among senior ICC officials that Israel had cultivated sources within the court’s prosecution division, known as the office of the prosecutor. Another later recalled that although the Mossad “didn’t leave its signature”, it was an assumption the agency was behind some of the activity officials had been made aware of.
Only a small group of senior figures at the ICC, however, were informed that the director of the Mossad had personally approached the chief prosecutor.
A career spy, Cohen enjoys a reputation in Israel’s intelligence community as an effective recruiter of foreign agents. He was a loyal and powerful ally of the prime minister at the time, having been appointed as director of the Mossad by Netanyahu in 2016 after working for several years at his side as his national security adviser.
As the head of the national security council between 2013 and 2016, Cohen oversaw the body that, according to multiple sources, began to coordinate a multiagency effort against the ICC once Bensouda opened the preliminary inquiry in 2015.
Cohen’s first interaction with Bensouda appears to have taken place at the Munich security conference in 2017, when the Mossad director introduced himself to the prosecutor in a brief exchange. After this encounter, Cohen subsequently “ambushed” Bensouda in a bizarre episode
Cohen (right) was appointed as director of the Mossad by Netanyahu in 2016 after working for several years as his national security adviser.
ICC prosecutor requests arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant and three Hamas leaders
Three of those sources were familiar with Bensouda’s formal disclosures to the ICC about the matter. They said she revealed Cohen had put pressure on her on several occasions not to proceed with a criminal investigation in the ICC’s Palestine case.
Mossad/CIA/MI6/MI6/Five Eyes Security Agency Alliance Above The Law to Be Able To Commit Murder With Impunity
The former head of the Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence agency, allegedly threatened a chief prosecutor of the international criminal court in a series of secret meetings in which he tried to pressure her into abandoning a war crimes investigation,
the Guardian can reveal..
The former head of theMossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, allegedly threatened a chief prosecutor of the international criminal court in a series of secret meetings in which he tried to pressure her into abandoning a war crimes investigation, the Guardian can reveal.
Yossi Cohen’s covert contacts with the ICC’s then prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, took place in the years leading up to her decision to open a formal investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in occupied Palestinian territories.
The ICC case dates back to 2015, when Fatou Bensouda decided to open a preliminary examination into the situation in Palestine. Photograph: Pacific Press Media Production Corp/Alamy
In the Mossad’s efforts to influence Bensouda, Israel received support from an unlikely ally: Joseph Kabila, the former president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who played a supporting role in the plot.
Bensouda with Joseph Kabila in New York. Sources claim the then DRC leader played an important supporting role in the Mossad’s plot against the ICC’s chief prosecutor. Photograph: ICC
Bensouda was in New York in 2018 on an official visit, and was meeting Kabila, then the president of the DRC, at his hotel. The pair had met several times before in relation to the ICC’s ongoing investigation into alleged crimes committed in his country.
The meeting, however, appears to have been a setup. At a certain point, after Bensouda’s staff were asked to leave the room, Cohen entered, according to three sources familiar with the meeting. The surprise appearance, they said, caused alarm to Bensouda and a group of ICC officials travelling with her.
Thomas Graham Allwood was murdered in Broxburn Scotland, on the 21st June, 2012 after telling friends the day before of threats on his life
The world still morns and reflects on the murder of INL News and AWN News Investigative Journalist, poet, film and TV producer... Thomas Graham Allwood was only 56 years old..... who was murdered because he dared to expose the truth about many wrongful illegal activities being carried out by the rich, well-connected and powerful
The below independent witness's sworn testimony of the next door neighbour to John Montgomery's House, where Thomas Graham Allwood was invited that night to visit after being at the pub,.... was completely ignored by the jury and the court. This undisputable evidence proves that Thomas Graham Allwood was king hit against the lounge room wall, at around 3.15 am... everything went silent... then Thomas Graham Allwood was obviously carried out quietly while unconscious .... with the door not slamming for the first time for years .... then Thomas Graham Allwood was stabbed in the street while unconscious ..... then left in the street to bleed to death... ..
Whereas Kyle Montgomery, who was a diagnosed chronic schizophrenic. completely made up the story to the court that the fight and stabbing broke out at around 1 am in the morning, and that Thomas Graham Allwood was armed with an Iron Bar .... and he accidently stabbed Thomas Graham Allwood with a single six inch wound to his heart, being the only spot a person cab be stabbed and die form such stab wound....
( a Russian Police Officer was stabbed 35 times and did not die from his stab wounds) .....
Thomas Graham Allwood was a well built man and a trained security guard, who could easily handle the small statured paralytic drunk Kyle Montgomery without any iron bar...
However if Thomas Graham Allwood had an iron bar, which is doubtful, .... as there would be nowhere to obtain an iron bar. at 1 to 3 am in the morning in a quiet small residential place such as Broxburn.... there is no possible way that Kyle Montgomery, who would have been paralytic drunk, after drinking vodka for the last 12 plus hours, could have been able to achieve a one single six inch stab wound into Thomas Graham Allwood's body ..., in the only place that could kill a person, with one stab wound.....
( two experts were interviewed by the INLTVNews Investigation Team ..
One a doctor,
and
Second, a trained professional hitman trained to silently kill a person for the UK Government ...
They both stated that to be able to kill a person with one single stab wound, one has to have an intimate knowledge of the human body, have the right type of long sharp pointed knife, not a serrated bread knife that Kyle Montgomery says he used to stab Thomas Graham Allwood with ...know where exactly to stab the person, and know how to extract the knife to cause maximum damage ... and be well in control of their senses and movements ... not paralytic drunk)..
....if Thomas Graham Allwood was armed with an iron bar, then he would have easily knocked the knife out o Kyle Montgomery's hand, and then completely overpowered the small statured paralytic drunk Kyle Montgomery ... at best Kyle Montgomery may have landed a few superficial wounds on Thomas Graham Allwood, before the iron bar was used to knock the knife out of Kyle Montgomery's hand...
... thus in the circumstances, there is simply no way that Thomas Graham Allwood ended up with just one deep six inch stab wound to the heart, with no other superficial wounds on his body... as evidenced by the forensic witness at the trial.. .....
plus all this was meant to have taken place at around 1am in the morning, according to Kyle Montgomery and his father John Montgomery... ..... yet the next door neighbours said the drinking, shouting and arguing went on till 3.15 am in the morning.. which all ended with an eventual massive bang on their bedroom wall at 3.15 am in the morning, with the bang so hard they thought that their thin plaster bedroom wall was going to cave in... it seems that their is no reasonable doubt that Thomas Graham Allwood was given a massively hard king hit against John Montgomery's lounge room wall, which was also their bedroom wall at 3.15 in the morning, with it likely that his girl friend Margaret Sheddon, who was a trained nurse, had given Thomas Graham Allwood some heavy sedative drugs when she gave him his heart pills,... so by the time he was king hit Thomas Graham Allwood was well on the way to being heavily sedated..
.... this further proves the whole story as stated by Kyle Montgomery at his trial was a completely fabricated story.... which was implanted in his mind... so he could be the fall guy for the hired hit man acting under instructions of the Mossad/CIA/MI5/MI6/CIA/Five Eyes, ,,,, who was hired to kill Thomas Graham Allwood form nay reasons, which included that Thomas Graham Allwood was involved in exposing serious corruption int her UK Government, the UK Police and Legal system, along with issued a £100 million pound damages claim and a criminal contempt application against the then UK Prime Minister David Cameron, and the UK Chancellor, George Osborne, who are not well-connected powerful Red Lodge high ranking Scottish Rite Freemasons, along with the UK Border Agency, the UK Home Office, and UK Treasury Solicitors named as respondents in these High Court of London Proceedings.. which included a criminal contempt application for the respondents to be put in prison for their involvement in a most serious criminal conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, by all conspiring to create a false fraudulent UK Border Agency document and having their Treasury Solicitors present it to Master Page at the High Court of Justice in London, attached to a letter demanding that, on the basis such false fraudulent UK Border Agency Document, that Master Page completely strike out strike Thomas Graham Allwood's and others High Court Claim for £100 million in damages against the then UK Prime Minister David Cameron, and the UK Chancellor, George Osborne, who are not well-connected powerful Red Lodge high ranking Scottish Rite Freemasons, along with the UK Border Agency, the UK Home Office, and UK Treasury Solicitors ...for illegally and wrongfully arresting very talented USA Character Comedian Ronnie Prouty at London's Heathrow Airport, then illegally and wrongfully holding him in custody for 48 hours, and then sending him back to Los Angeles in handcuffs using his own return ticket back to Loas Angeles...48 hours later... to stop him continue hos journey to Edinburgh, where he was staying for five days to help free of charge with the filming of the Pilot of the Fringe Shows Have Talent TV Show, , then returning back to Los Angeles..... Rupert Murdoch and his all powerful Rothschild silent partners in their News Corp LLC wanted the UK Border Agency to in any way possible to stop the the Pilot of the Fringe Shows Have Talent TV Show, which was being produced by the INLTVNews Group and Thomas Graham Allwood , because this would give their competitors, the INLTVNews Media, TV, Film and Publishing Group and Thomas Graham Allwood, creditability in the media, TV and filming world, and help make them financially successful with their proposed float of the stock exchange.
Below if a copy of part of the unsigned and no UK Border Agency officers named.... Fraudulent False UK Border Agency Document presented to Master Page at the High Court on London, by the UK Treasury Solicitors, on behalf of the then UK Prime Minister David Cameron, the then UK Chancellor George Osborne, the UK Home Office and the UK Border Agency with a false made up statement that falsely implies was made by Ronnie Prouty to two unnamed UK Border Agency Officers ... which was never made by Ronne Prouty... well knowing that such document was fraudulent and false .... as a basis to convince the Red Lodge High Ranking Scottish Rite Freemason Master Price, to completely strike out without any court hearing, Thomas Graham Allwood's and Others claim for £100, million pounds damages, which cost £3,00 pounds in court fees to file, without talking into consideration legal preparation costs, for the wrongful and illegal arrest of Character Comedian, Ronnie Prouty on the 14th May 2011 at London's Heathrow Airport, which was for the wrongful purpose, to commercially sabotage the filming of the Fringe Shows Have Talent TV Pilot in Edinburgh planned for filming in May 2011
INLTVWorld News Top Investigative Journalist Thomas Graham Allwood was found lying dead as a result of a violent stabbing in the Pyothall Road Broxburn
INLTVWorld News Top Investigative Journalist Thomas Graham Allwood held both UK and Australian Passports, having been born in Scotland, but lived a lot of his life in Australia with his World War II Hero Father, Thomas Allwood, who worked for both the British and Australian Air Forces, was found lying dead as a result of a violent stabbing in the Pyothall Road Broxburn .
World War II Hero, Thomas Allwood, was ordered by the UK Government at the end of World War II, to act in his capacity of a flight engineer, on hundreds of clandestine flights from Heathrow Airport in London, delivering to the Rothschilds in Switzerland, billions of pounds of gold bars stacked on wooden pallets and wrapped in Black Plastic, with no security guards present, so there no witnesses, other than a couple of RAAF Staff, who were sworn to secrecy.
This billions of pounds in gold bars as the repayment of Britain's War Finance Debt owed to the Rothschild Family, who financed the military purchases to all sides of World War II.
INLTVWorldNews Top Investigative Journalist, Thomas Graham Allwood ,was found by members of the public lying across Pyothall Road in Broxburn, Scotland at about 04:45 on Thursday 21st June 2012, having been violently stabbed to death by a very professional hitman. Thomas Graham Allwood died from a one six inch knife wound to his heart, after been drugged and then violently king hit to make him unconscious, at a nearby house in Broxburn, where he was lured to visit by a Mossad/MI5/MI6/CIA/Five Eyes Security Agency Alliance Asset. Thomas Graham Allwood's body was carried to the street, where he was stabbed while unconscious, then left to bleed to death in Pyothall Road in Broxburn, Scotland. An in-depth INLTVWorldNews Investigation Report in the background of the murder and how the murder happened, and why the murder happened, showing beyond any reasonable doubt that the Mossad/MI5/MI6/CIA/Five Eyes Security Agency Alliance were involved in the planned murder of INLTVWorldNews Top Investigative Journalist, Thomas Graham Allwood, was handed to the Head of Scotland's Procurat0r Fiscal, which is Scotland's equivalent the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in other Western Countries,.
This in-depth INLTVWorldNews Investigation Report in the background of the murder and how the murder happened, and why the murder happened, demanded a personal meeting with the Head of Scotland's Procurat0r Fiscal, to discuss the reinvestigation of the murder of Thomas Graham Allwood, a further examination of the body, and am injunction freeze of the planned cremation of the body of Thomas Graham Allwood, until a full reexamination of his body was completed. However, the Head of Scotland's Procurat0r Fiscal ordered the immediate cremation of the body of Thomas Graham Allwood, refused any meeting to discuss the most serious facts and issues set out in the INLTVWorldNews 300 in-depth Investigation Report into the murder of Thomas Graham Allwood, and wrote a short one sentence letter to the INLTVWorldNews stating... "Scotland's Police and Procurat0r Fiscal have done an excellent job investigating the murder of INLTVWorldNews Top Investigative Journalist, Thomas Graham Allwood, and file in now completely closed, thus no meeting to discuss this matter will be provided with the INLTVWorld News Group, and no further correspondence with be entered into the murder of Thomas Graham Allwood
Community's shock over man's death
A COMMUNITY have spoken of their shock after a man was found dead in their street.
One woman whose home overlooks the area where Thomas’ body was discovered said she was upset to hear what had happened. She said: “I didn’t hear a thing during the night but it’s shocking to think this has happened here. “This is far too close to home for my liking. “Pyothall Road is a normally quiet area. “On a Saturday night around here you can just about hear a pin drop. “The only people you really see are dog walkers. “Nothing like this has happened round here before so it’s quite upsetting. “I had to go and pick my kids up from school because they were too scared to walk home.” Another man who lives in the area said he was shaken when he heard about the incident in the street. He said: “We had the window open during the night and I would have thought we would have heard something. “The first we knew about it was when the police arrived. “It’s a terrible shock to think this has happened on our own doorstep.”
A man has appeared in court charged with murder following the death of Thomas Allwood. Kyle Montgomery (24) of Winchburgh, appeared at Livingston Sheriff Court on Monday. He made no plea or declaration and was remanded in custody.
Please note that An in-depth INLTVWorldNews Investigation Report in the background of the murder and how the murder happened, and why the murder happened, showing beyond any reasonable doubt that the Mossad/MI5/MI6/CIA/Five Eyes Security Agency Alliance were involved in the planned murder of INLTVWorldNews Top Investigative Journalist, Thomas Graham Allwood.
Such in-depth INLTVWorldNews Investigation Report proves beyond any possible reasonable doubt that Kyle Montgomery (24) of Winchburgh, could not have been involved in the murder of Thomas Graham Allwood on the 21st June 2012, and framed by various Mossad/MI5/MI6/CIA/Five Eyes Security Agency Alliance Assets. However, as Kyle Montgomery (24) of Winchburgh, was already a certified schizophrenic prior to his wrongful arrest for the murder of Thomas Graham Allwood, and thus Kyle Montgomery (24) of Winchburgh, will not spend a night in any prison. Kyle Montgomery (24) of Winchburgh, will have been sent to a Scottish mental hospital and after a shorty while released with medication back into the community.
It is also noted that, very conveniently for the Mossad/MI5/MI6/CIA/Five Eyes Security Agency Alliance. there is no Inquest in Scotland. so no interested party can demand an independent Coroner to independently investigate the murder of Thomas Graham Allwood.
Protesters gather outside the ICC to call for the court to prosecute Israel for war crimes.
Multiple sources said it was at this stage, as the judges considered the case, that Cohen escalated his attempts to persuade Bensouda not to pursue a full investigation in the event the judges gave her the green light.
Between late 2019 and early 2021, the sources said, there were at least three encounters between Cohen and Bensouda, all initiated by the spy chief. His behaviour is said to have become increasingly concerning to ICC officials.
A source familiar with Bensouda’s accounts of the final two meetings with Cohen said he had raised questions about her security, and that of her family, in a manner that led her to believe he was threatening her.
On one occasion, Cohen is said to have shown Bensouda copies of photographs of her husband, which were taken covertly when the couple were visiting London. On another, according to sources, Cohen suggested to the prosecutor that a decision to open a full investigation would be detrimental to her career.
Four sources familiar with the situation said it was around the same time that Bensouda and other ICC officials discovered that information was circulating among diplomatic channels relating to her husband, who worked as an international affairs consultant.
Between 2019 and 2020, the Mossad had been actively seeking compromising information on the prosecutor and took an interest in her family members.
In February 2021, it was confirmed that the ICC had jurisdiction in occupied Palestinian territories.
The spy agency obtained a cache of material, including transcripts of an apparent sting operation against her husband.
It is unclear who conducted the operation, or precisely what he is alleged to have said in the recordings. One possibility is that he had been targeted by the intelligence agency or by private actors of another country that wanted leverage over the ICC. Another possibility is the information was fabricated.
Once in the possession of Israel, however, the material was used by its diplomats in an unsuccessful attempt to undermine the chief prosecutor. But according to multiple sources, Israel failed to convince its allies of the significance of the material.
Three sources briefed on the information shared by Israel at a diplomatic level described the efforts as part of an unsuccessful “smear campaign” against Bensouda. “They went after Fatou,” one source said, but it had “no impact” on the prosecutor’s work.
Trump and Netanyahu.
The Trump administration imposed visa restrictions and sanctions on Bensouda in 2019-20.
The diplomatic efforts were part of a coordinated effort by the governments of Netanyahu and Donald Trump in the US to place public and private pressure on the prosecutor and her staff.
Between 2019 and 2020, in an unprecedented decision, the Trump administration imposed visa restrictions and sanctions on the chief prosecutor. The move was in retaliation to Bensouda’s pursuit of a separate investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan, allegedly committed by the Taliban and both Afghan and US military personnel.
However, Mike Pompeo, then US secretary of state, linked the sanctions package to the Palestine case. “It’s clear the ICC is only putting Israel in [its] crosshairs for nakedly political purposes,” he said.
Months later, he accused Bensouda, without citing any evidence, of having “engaged in corrupt acts for her personal benefit”.
President Joe Biden has reiterated that he is a Zionist and said Israel must take advantage of an opportunity to have peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians.
The former head of theMossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, allegedly threatened a chief prosecutor of the international criminal court in a series of secret meetings in which he tried to pressure her into abandoning a war crimes investigation, the Guardian can reveal.
Yossi Cohen’s covert contacts with the ICC’s then prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, took place in the years leading up to her decision to open a formal investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in occupied Palestinian territories.
That investigation, launched in 2021, culminated last week when Bensouda’s successor, Karim Khan, announced that he was seeking an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over the country’s conduct in its war in Gaza.
The prosecutor’s decision to apply to the ICC’s pre-trial chamber for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, alongside three Hamas leaders, is an outcome Israel’s military and political establishment has long feared.
Cohen (right) was appointed as director of the Mossad by Netanyahu in 2016 after working for several years as his national security adviser.
Cohen’s personal involvement in the operation against the ICC took place when he was the director of the Mossad. His activities were authorised at a high level and justified on the basis the court posed a threat of prosecutions against military personnel, according to a senior Israeli official.
Another Israeli source briefed on the operation against Bensouda said the Mossad’s objective was to compromise the prosecutor or enlist her as someone who would cooperate with Israel’s demands.
A third source familiar with the operation said Cohen was acting as Netanyahu’s “unofficial messenger”.
Cohen, who was one of Netanyahu’s closest allies at the time and is emerging as a political force in his own right in Israel, personally led the Mossad’s involvement in an almost decade-long campaign by the country to undermine the court.
Four sources confirmed that Bensouda had briefed a small group of senior ICC officials about Cohen’s attempts to sway her, amid concerns about the increasingly persistent and threatening nature of his behaviour.
5:17
ICC prosecutor requests arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant and three Hamas leaders – video
Three of those sources were familiar with Bensouda’s formal disclosures to the ICC about the matter. They said she revealed Cohen had put pressure on her on several occasions not to proceed with a criminal investigation in the ICC’s Palestine case.
According to accounts shared with ICC officials, he is alleged to have told her: “You should help us and let us take care of you. You don’t want to be getting into things that could compromise your security or that of your family.”
One individual briefed on Cohen’s activities said he had used “despicable tactics” against Bensouda as part of an ultimately unsuccessful effort to intimidate and influence her. They likened his behaviour to “stalking”.
The Mossad also took a keen interest in Bensouda’s family members and obtained transcripts of secret recordings of her husband, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the situation. Israeli officials then attempted to use the material to discredit the prosecutor.
The revelations about Cohen’s operation form part of a forthcoming investigation by the Guardian, the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, revealing how multiple Israel intelligence agencies ran a covert “war” against the ICC for almost a decade.
Contacted by the Guardian, a spokesperson for Israel’s prime minister’s office said: “The questions forwarded to us are replete with many false and unfounded allegations meant to hurt the state of Israel.” Cohen did not respond to a request for comment. Bensouda declined to comment.
The ICC case dates back to 2015, when Fatou Bensouda decided to open a preliminary examination into the situation in Palestine.
In the Mossad’s efforts to influence Bensouda, Israel received support from an unlikely ally: Joseph Kabila, the former president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who played a supporting role in the plot.
Revelations about the Mossad’s efforts to influence Bensouda come as the current chief prosecutor, Khan, warned in recent days that he would not hesitate to prosecute “attempts to impede, intimidate or improperly influence” ICC officials.
According to legal experts and former ICC officials, efforts by the Mossad to threaten or put pressure on Bensouda could amount to offences against the administration of justice under article 70 of the Rome statute, the treaty that established the court.
A spokesperson for the ICC would not say whether Khan had reviewed his predecessor’s disclosures about her contacts with Cohen, but said Khan had never met or spoken to the head of the Mossad.
While the spokesperson declined to comment on specific allegations, they said Khan’s office had been subjected to “several forms of threats and communications that could be viewed as attempts to unduly influence its activities”.
Bensouda sparks ire of Israel
Khan’s decision to seek arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant last week marked the first time the court had taken action against leaders of a country closely allied with the US and Europe. Their alleged crimes – which include directing attacks on civilians and using starvation as a method of warfare – relate to the eight-month war in Gaza.
The ICC case, however, dates back to 2015, when Bensouda decided to open a preliminary examination into the situation in Palestine. Short of a full investigation, her inquiry was tasked with making an initial assessment of allegations of crimes by individuals in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Bensouda’s decision sparked the ire of Israel, which feared its citizens could be prosecuted for their involvement in operations in Palestinian territories. Israel had long been open about its opposition to the ICC, refusing to recognise its authority. Israeli ministers intensified their attacks on the court and even vowed to try to dismantle it.
Soon after commencing the preliminary examination, Bensouda and her senior prosecutors began to receive warnings that Israeli intelligence was taking a close interest in their work.
Yossi Cohen during a reception held at the Israeli foreign ministry in Jerusalem, in May 2018.
According to two sources, there were even suspicions among senior ICC officials that Israel had cultivated sources within the court’s prosecution division, known as the office of the prosecutor. Another later recalled that although the Mossad “didn’t leave its signature”, it was an assumption the agency was behind some of the activity officials had been made aware of.
Only a small group of senior figures at the ICC, however, were informed that the director of the Mossad had personally approached the chief prosecutor.
A career spy, Cohen enjoys a reputation in Israel’s intelligence community as an effective recruiter of foreign agents. He was a loyal and powerful ally of the prime minister at the time, having been appointed as director of the Mossad by Netanyahu in 2016 after working for several years at his side as his national security adviser.
As the head of the national security council between 2013 and 2016, Cohen oversaw the body that, according to multiple sources, began to coordinate a multiagency effort against the ICC once Bensouda opened the preliminary inquiry in 2015.
Cohen’s first interaction with Bensouda appears to have taken place at the Munich security conference in 2017, when the Mossad director introduced himself to the prosecutor in a brief exchange. After this encounter, Cohen subsequently “ambushed” Bensouda in a bizarre episode in a Manhattan hotel suite, according to multiple sources familiar with the incident.
Bensouda with Joseph Kabila in New York. Sources claim the then DRC leader played an important supporting role in the Mossad’s plot against the ICC’s chief prosecutor. Photograph: ICC
Bensouda was in New York in 2018 on an official visit, and was meeting Kabila, then the president of the DRC, at his hotel. The pair had met several times before in relation to the ICC’s ongoing investigation into alleged crimes committed in his country.
The meeting, however, appears to have been a setup. At a certain point, after Bensouda’s staff were asked to leave the room, Cohen entered, according to three sources familiar with the meeting. The surprise appearance, they said, caused alarm to Bensouda and a group of ICC officials travelling with her.
Why Kabila helped Cohen is unclear, but ties between the two men were revealed in 2022 by the Israeli publication TheMarker, which reported on a series of secretive trips the Mossad director made to the DRC throughout 2019.
According to the publication, Cohen’s trips, during which he sought Kabila’s advice “on an issue of interest to Israel”, and which were almost certainly approved by Netanyahu, were highly unusual and had astonished senior figures within the intelligence community.
Reporting on the DRC meetings in 2022, the Israeli broadcaster Kan 11 said Cohen’s trips related to an “extremely controversial plan” and cited official sources who described it as “one of Israel’s most sensitive secrets”.
Multiple sources have confirmed to the Guardian the trips were partly related to the ICC operation, and Kabila, who left office in January 2019, played an important supporting role in the Mossad’s plot against Bensouda. Kabila did not respond to a request for comment.
‘Threats and manipulation’
After the surprise meeting with Kabila and Bensouda in New York, Cohen repeatedly phoned the chief prosecutor and sought meetings with her, three sources recalled. According to two people familiar with the situation, at one stage Bensouda asked Cohen how he had obtained her phone number, to which he replied: “Did you forget what I do for a living?”
Initially, the sources explained, the intelligence chief “tried to build a relationship” with the prosecutor and played “good cop” in an attempt to charm her. The initial objective, they said, appeared to have been to enlist Bensouda into cooperating with Israel.
Over time, however, the tone of Cohen’s contact changed and he began to use a range of tactics, including “threats and manipulation”, an individual briefed on the meetings said. This prompted Bensouda to inform a small group of senior ICC officials about his behaviour.
In December 2019, the prosecutor announced that she had grounds to open a full criminal investigation into allegations of war crimes in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. However, she held off launching it, deciding first to request a ruling from the ICC’s pre-trial chamber to confirm the court did indeed have jurisdiction over Palestine.
Protesters gather outside the ICC to call for the court to prosecute Israel for war crimes.
Multiple sources said it was at this stage, as the judges considered the case, that Cohen escalated his attempts to persuade Bensouda not to pursue a full investigation in the event the judges gave her the green light.
Between late 2019 and early 2021, the sources said, there were at least three encounters between Cohen and Bensouda, all initiated by the spy chief. His behaviour is said to have become increasingly concerning to ICC officials.
A source familiar with Bensouda’s accounts of the final two meetings with Cohen said he had raised questions about her security, and that of her family, in a manner that led her to believe he was threatening her.
On one occasion, Cohen is said to have shown Bensouda copies of photographs of her husband, which were taken covertly when the couple were visiting London. On another, according to sources, Cohen suggested to the prosecutor that a decision to open a full investigation would be detrimental to her career.
Four sources familiar with the situation said it was around the same time that Bensouda and other ICC officials discovered that information was circulating among diplomatic channels relating to her husband, who worked as an international affairs consultant.
Between 2019 and 2020, the Mossad had been actively seeking compromising information on the prosecutor and took an interest in her family members.
In February 2021, it was confirmed that the ICC had jurisdiction in occupied Palestinian territories. Photograph: Peter Dejong/AP
The spy agency obtained a cache of material, including transcripts of an apparent sting operation against her husband.
It is unclear who conducted the operation, or precisely what he is alleged to have said in the recordings. One possibility is that he had been targeted by the intelligence agency or by private actors of another country that wanted leverage over the ICC. Another possibility is the information was fabricated.
Once in the possession of Israel, however, the material was used by its diplomats in an unsuccessful attempt to undermine the chief prosecutor. But according to multiple sources, Israel failed to convince its allies of the significance of the material.
Three sources briefed on the information shared by Israel at a diplomatic level described the efforts as part of an unsuccessful “smear campaign” against Bensouda. “They went after Fatou,” one source said, but it had “no impact” on the prosecutor’s work.
Trump and Netanyahu. The Trump administration imposed visa restrictions and sanctions on Bensouda in 2019-20.
The diplomatic efforts were part of a coordinated effort by the governments of Netanyahu and Donald Trump in the US to place public and private pressure on the prosecutor and her staff.
Between 2019 and 2020, in an unprecedented decision, the Trump administration imposed visa restrictions and sanctions on the chief prosecutor. The move was in retaliation to Bensouda’s pursuit of a separate investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan, allegedly committed by the Taliban and both Afghan and US military personnel.
However, Mike Pompeo, then US secretary of state, linked the sanctions package to the Palestine case. “It’s clear the ICC is only putting Israel in [its] crosshairs for nakedly political purposes,” he said.
Months later, he accused Bensouda, without citing any evidence, of having “engaged in corrupt acts for her personal benefit”.
“In the end, our central concern must be for the victims of crimes, both Palestinian and Israeli, arising from the long cycle of violence and insecurity that has caused deep suffering and despair on all sides,” she said at the time.
Bensouda completed her nine-year term at the ICC three months later, leaving it to her successor, Khan, to take up the investigation. It was only after the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October and the ensuing war on Gaza that the ICC’s investigation gained renewed urgency, culminating in last week’s request for arrest warrants.
It was the conclusion Israel’s political, military and intelligence establishment had feared. “The fact they chose the head of Mossad to be the prime minister’s unofficial messenger to [Bensouda] was to intimidate, by definition,” said a source briefed on Cohen’s operation. “It failed.”
COHEN WAS NETANYAHU'S 'UNOFFICIAL MESSENGER' TO BENSOUDA
Former Mossad chief threatened ICC prosecutor over probe into Israel, report claims
The Guardian charges that Yossi Cohen ‘stalked’ and ‘intimidated’ former ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda between 2017 and 2021, hinted he’d incriminate her husband
Ex-Mossad chief Yossi Cohen (left) at the Kirya base in Tel Aviv, January 16, 2023 (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90); Then-International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in The Hague, Netherlands, June 14, 2021.
Former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen allegedly engaged in “threats and intimidation” in an attempt to stop former International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda from opening a war crimes investigation into Israel, according to a report published by The Guardian on Tuesday.
Citing a slew of unnamed Israeli and ICC officials, the report claimed Cohen, who led the Mossad in 2016-2021, had frequent and increasingly threatening communications with Bensouda between 2017 and 2021 that amounted to “stalking,” in which he tried to persuade her not to investigate Israel.
Three unnamed Israeli sources familiar with the matter told The Guardian that Cohen was allegedly approved “at a high level” to act as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “unofficial messenger” and that the objective was to compromise Bensouda or get her to comply with Israel’s demands.
The Guardian said the allegations come from part of a forthcoming investigation by the Guardian, the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, revealing how multiple Israel intelligence agencies ran a covert “war” against the ICC for almost a decade.
The report placed Cohen’s and Bensouda’s first meeting in 2017 when the former Mossad chief introduced himself to the then-prosecutor at a security conference in Munich
The next meeting, the report continued, came in 2018 when Cohen allegedly teamed up with the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s then-president Joseph Kabila to ambush Bensouda in a hotel room in New York.
According to the report, Bensouda was meant to meet with Kabila but found herself in a surprise meeting with Cohen after her staff was told to leave the room, which sources said left her “alarmed.”
ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, January 28, 2016.
Three unnamed sources told The Guardian that after the surprise meeting, Cohen repeatedly called Bensouda on her phone and sought meetings with her, asking her “Did you forget what I do for a living?” when she inquired how he got her number.
The sources said Cohen initially “played good cop,” trying to build a relationship with Bensouda, but eventually resorted to “threats and manipulation” when that did not work.
They added that after Bensouda announced in 2019 that she was ready to open an investigation into Israel, she and Cohen had three meetings until she left her role in 2021.
Former Mossad chief Yossi Cohen at a Jerusalem Post Conference on October 12, 2021
Cohen allegedly initiated all three meetings, two of which led Bensouda to believe he was threatening her and her family after he showed her covert photos of her husband and told her an investigation would be detrimental to her career.
An unspecified number of unnamed ICC officials claimed they were told that Cohen had said to Bensouda, “You should help us and let us take care of you. You don’t want to be getting into things that could compromise your security or that of your family.”
The report claimed Israel then launched a smear campaign against Bensouda that was allegedly coordinated with then-US president Donald Trump, who imposed visa restrictions and sanctions on her. President Joe Biden canceled the sanctions when he took office in 2021.
Then-president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Joseph Kabila sits in a garden at his ranch on December 10, 2018 in Kinshasa. (John WESSELS / AFP)
Responding to a request for comment, the Prime Minister’s Office told The Guardian, “The questions forwarded to us are replete with many false and unfounded allegations meant to hurt the State of Israel.”
The publication added that Cohen did not respond to a request for comment and that Bensouda declined to comment.
Bensouda announced in December 2019 that her office had grounds to open an investigation into Israeli actions in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem but that she was seeking a ruling on whether the ICC had jurisdiction.
In the report she published at the time, she accused Israel of at least three disproportionate attacks, willfully killing and injuring civilians, and intentionally attacking Red Cross personnel and institutions during Operation Protective Edge in Gaza in 2014.
In the same report, she accused Hamas and other terrorist organizations of a string of charges including intentionally attacking Israeli civilians, using Palestinian civilians as human shields, and torture and inhumane treatment.
At the time of her announcement, Bensouda was accused of bias against Israel. Israeli observers noted the significance of the timing of the investigation’s span: On June 12, 2014, Hamas terrorists kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teenagers in the Gush Etzion area of the West Bank. Bensouda’s investigation was set to focus on events beginning only from the following day.
More than a year later, in February, 2021, the pre-trial chamber ruled that “Palestine” was enough of a state to fall under the ICC’s jurisdiction, and Bensouda began her investigation before stepping down that same month and being replaced with the current chief prosecutor, Karim Khan.
“The fact they chose the head of Mossad to be the prime minister’s unofficial messenger to [Bensouda] was to intimidate, by definition,” one of the unnamed sources told the Guardian. “It failed.”
International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan looks on during an interview with AFP at the Cour d’Honneur of the Palais Royal in Paris on February 7, 2024. (Dimitar DILKOFF / AFP)
Khan did not close the investigation, but it largely lost prominence until the Israel-Hamas war broke out on October 7 with Hamas’s unprecedented onslaught on southern Israel in which terrorists murdered some 1,200 people and seized 252 hostages.
Over more than seven months of the war, Khan investigated both Hamas’s actions during the attack and Israeli actions throughout its ground invasion in the Gaza Strip.
Last week, Khan announced that following his investigation, he was seeking arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders as well as Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant. The warrants for the latter two, he said, were being sought on charges of starvation as a method of warfare, willfully causing great suffering or cruel treatment, willfully killing, intentional attacks against civilians, extermination, and persecution.
Khan has never commented directly on Cohen’s alleged behavior toward Bensouda but has recently said that he would “not hesitate to prosecute attempts to impede, intimidate or improperly influence” ICC officials.
Secret agreements allow secretive intelligence agencies in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the USA to Spy on the World
In 1946, an alliance was formed between five anglophone countries and their security agencies: the US (NSA), the UK (GCHQ), Australia (ASD), Canada (CSEC) and New Zealand (GCSB) comprising of a series of bilateral agreements on surveillance and intelligence-sharing. Though these arrangements are commonly referred to as the United Kingdom-United States Communication Intelligence Act (UKUSA) agreement, the documents underpinning the Five Eyes alliance are numerous, intricate, and secret.
Pursuant to these arrangements, each of the Five Eyes states conducts interception, collection, acquisition, analysis and decryption activities, sharing all intelligence information obtained with the others by default.
Information on the Five Eyes alliance has emerged piecemeal since its birth. We now know that Five Eyes have integrated programmes, integrated staff, integrated bases, and integrated analysis.
Intelligence-sharing agreements have now expanded beyond the Five Eyes to include other states:
9 Eyes: the Five Eyes, with the addition of Denmark, France, the Netherlands and Norway; 14 Eyes: the 9 Eyes, with the addition of Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Sweden; 41 Eyes: all of the above, with the addition of the allied coalition in Afghanistan; Tier B countries with which the Five Eyes have “focused cooperation” on computer network exploitation, including Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungry, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey;
What is the problem
The Five Eyes intelligence-sharing arrangements are shrouded in secrecy, allowing for arbitrary or unlawful intrusions on the right to privacy which circumvent domestic legal restrictions on state surveillance. There is no domestic legislation governing intelligence-sharing, meaning that many of these arrangements lack legal basis and therefore democratic legitimacy. The “third party rule”, often included in intelligence-sharing agreements, forbids the disclosure of inter-agency information to third parties, ousting the possibility of oversight.
Some of the bilateral agreements falling under the UKUSA umbrella reveal the outsourcing of surveillance activities to corporations without limiting their access to classified information, contributing to the privatisation of espionage. This raises questions about the delegation of governmental functions to private actors that remain unanswered.
The Five Eyes (FVEY) is an Anglosphereintelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.[1] These countries are parties to the multilateral UK-USA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in signals intelligence.[2][3][4] Informally, Five Eyes can refer to the group of intelligence agencies of these countries.
The origins of the FVEY can be traced to informal secret meetings during World War II between British and American code-breakers, before the US formally entered the war.[5] The alliance was formalized in the post-war era, specifically through the UKUSA Agreement in 1946. As the Cold War deepened, the intelligence sharing arrangement became formalised under the ECHELON surveillance system in the 1960s.[6] This was developed by the FVEY to monitor the communications of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc; it is now used to monitor communications worldwide.[7][8] The FVEY expanded their surveillance capabilities during the course of the "war on terror", with much emphasis placed on monitoring the World Wide Web. The alliance has grown into a robust global surveillance mechanism, adapting to new challenges such as international terrorism, cyber threats, and regional conflicts.
The alliance's activities, often shrouded in secrecy, have occasionally come under scrutiny for their implications on privacy and civil liberties, sparking debates and legal challenges. In the late 1990s, the existence of ECHELON was disclosed to the public, triggering a debate in the European Parliament and, to a lesser extent, the United States Congress and British Parliament. Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden described the Five Eyes as a "supra-national intelligence organisation that does not answer to the known laws of its own countries".[9]2010s global surveillance disclosures revealed FVEY had been spying on one another's citizens and sharing the collected information with each other, although the FVEY nations maintain this was done legally. It has been claimed FVEY nations have been sharing intelligence to circumvent domestic laws, but only one court case in Canada has found any FVEY nation breaking domestic laws when sharing intelligence with a FVEYs partner.[10][11]
Five Eyes is among the most comprehensive espionage alliances.[12] Since processed intelligence is gathered from multiple sources, the intelligence shared is not restricted to signals intelligence (SIGINT) and often involves defence intelligence as well as human intelligence (HUMINT) and geospatial intelligence (GEOINT). Five Eyes remains a critical element in the intelligence and security landscape of each member country, providing a strategic advantage in understanding and responding to global events.
Organisations
The following table provides an overview of most of the FVEY agencies involved in such forms of data sharing.[2]
The earliest origins of the Five Eyes alliance are secret meetings between British and US code-breakers at the British code-breaking establishment at Bletchley Park in February 1941 (before the US entry into the war).[13] A February 1941 entry in the diary of Alastair Denniston, head of Bletchley Park, reading "The Ys are coming!" ("Ys" referring to "Yanks") is the first record, followed by "Ys arrive" on 10 February. The British and US agencies shared extremely confidential information, including the British breaking of the German Enigma code, and the US breaking of the JapanesePurple code. From then key figures travelled back and forth across the Atlantic, including Denniston and code-breaking expert Alan Turing. The practical relationship established for wartime signals intelligence developed into a formal signed agreement at the start of the post-war Cold War.[14]
In 1948, the treaty was extended to include Canada, followed by Norway (1952), Denmark (1954), West Germany (1955), Australia (1956), and New Zealand (1956).[16] These countries participated in the alliance as "third parties". By 1955, the formal status of the remaining Five Eyes countries was officially acknowledged in a newer version of the UKUSA Agreement that contained the following statement:
At this time only Canada, Australia and New Zealand will be regarded as UKUSA-collaborating Commonwealth countries.[16]
During the Cold War (generally accepted to be approximately the period 1947–1991), GCHQ and the NSA shared intelligence on the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, and several eastern European countries (known as Exotics).[18] Over the course of several decades, the ECHELON surveillance network was developed to monitor the military and diplomatic communications of the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc allies.[19]
During the Vietnam War, Australian and New Zealand operators in the Asia-Pacific region worked directly to support the United States, while GCHQ operators stationed in British Hong Kong were tasked with monitoring North Vietnamese air defence networks.[20][21] During the Falklands War, the British received intelligence data from its FVEY allies such as Australia, as well as from third parties such as Norway and France.[22][23][24] In the aftermath of the Gulf War, a technician of the ASIS was used by SIS to bug Kuwaiti government offices.[23]
In the 1950s, SIS and the CIA jointly orchestrated the overthrow of Iran's Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh.[25][26][27][28] In the 1960s, SIS and the CIA jointly orchestrated the assassination of the Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba.[29][30][31] In the 1970s, the ASIS and the CIA jointly orchestrated the overthrow of Chile's President Salvador Allende.[32][33][34][35] Also in the 1970s, a senior officer (Ian George Peacock) in the counterespionage unit of Australia's ASIO stole and sold highly classified intelligence documents shared with Australia to the Russians for at least five years. Peacock held the title of supervisor-E (espionage) and had top-secret security clearance. He retired from the ASIO in 1983 and died in 2006.[36] During the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, SIS and the CIA took part in Operation Yellowbird to rescue dissidents from the Chinese regime.[37]
ECHELON network disclosures (1972–2000)
By the end of the 20th century, the ECHELON surveillance network had evolved into a global system capable of sweeping up massive amounts of private and commercial communications, including telephone calls, fax, email and other data traffic. This was done through the interception of communication bearers such as satellite transmission and public switched telephone networks.[38]
The Five Eyes has two types of information collection methods: the PRISM program and the Upstream collection system. The PRISM program gathers user information from technology firms such as Google, Apple and Microsoft, while the Upstream system gathers information directly from the communications of civilians via fiber cables and infrastructure as data flows past.[39] The program's first disclosure to the public came in 1972 when a former NSA communications analyst reported to Ramparts magazine that the NSA had developed technology that "could crack all Soviet codes".[40] In 1988, Duncan Campbell revealed in the New Statesman the existence of ECHELON, an extension of the UKUSA Agreement on global signals intelligence [Sigint]. The story, 'Somebody's listening,' detailed how the eavesdropping operations were not only being employed in the interests of 'national security,' but were regularly abused for corporate espionage in the service of US business interests. The piece passed largely unnoticed outside of journalism circles.[41] In 1996, a detailed description of ECHELON was provided by New Zealand journalist Nicky Hager in a book titled Secret Power – New Zealand's Role in the International Spy Network', which was cited by the European Parliament in a 1998 report titled "An Appraisal of the Technology of Political Control" (PE 168.184).[42] On 16 March 2000, the Parliament called for a resolution on the Five Eyes and their ECHELON surveillance network, which, if passed, would have called for the "complete dismantling of ECHELON".[43]
Three months later, the Temporary Committee on ECHELON was set up by the European Parliament to investigate the ECHELON surveillance network. However, according to a number of European politicians such as Esko Seppänen of Finland, these investigations were hindered by the European Commission.[44]
In the United States, congressionallegislators warned that the ECHELON system could be used to monitor US citizens.[45] On 14 May 2001, the US government cancelled all meetings with the Temporary Committee on ECHELON.[46]
According to a BBC report in May 2001, "the US Government still refuses to admit that Echelon even exists."[19]
During the run-up to the Iraq War, the communications of UN weapons inspectorHans Blix were monitored by the Five Eyes.[47][48] The office of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was bugged by British agents.[49][50] An NSA memo detailed plans of the Five Eyes to boost eavesdropping on UN delegations of six countries as part of a "dirty tricks" campaign to apply pressure on these six countries to vote in favour of using force against Iraq.[49][51][52]
As of 2010, the Five Eyes also have access to SIPRNet, the US government's classified version of the Internet.[58]
In 2013, documents leaked by the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed the existence of numerous surveillance programs jointly operated by the Five Eyes. The following list includes several notable examples reported in the media:
PRISM – Operated by the NSA together with GCHQ and the ASD[59][60]
XKeyscore – Operated by the NSA with contributions from the ASD and the GCSB[61]
Tempora – Operated by GCHQ with contributions from the NSA[62][63]
STATEROOM – Operated by the ASD, CIA, CSE, GCHQ, and NSA[65]
In March 2014, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Australia to stop spying on East Timor. This marks the first such restrictions imposed on a member of the FVEY.[66]
In November 2020, the Five Eyes alliance criticised China's rules which disqualified elected legislators in Hong Kong.[67]
Competition with China (since 2018)
On 1 December 2018, Meng Wanzhou, a Huawei executive, was arrested by Canadian authorities at Vancouver International Airport, in order to face charges of fraud and conspiracy in the United States.[68] China responded by arresting two Canadian nationals. According to the South China Morning Post this conflict was seen by analysts as the beginning of a direct clash between the CCPs leadership of China and members of the Five Eyes alliance.[69] In the months that followed, the United States placed restrictions on technology exchanges with China.[70] Following prompting by parliamentarians in Australia and by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the UK Government announced it would reduce the presence of Huawei technology in its 5G network to zero.[71][72] The newspaper reported that these events were seen by Beijing as political warfare "waged with the world’s oldest intelligence alliance, the Five Eyes."[73]
In mid-April 2021, the New Zealand Foreign MinisterNanaia Mahuta issued a statement that New Zealand would not let the Five Eyes alliance dictate its bilateral relationship with China and that New Zealand was uncomfortable with expanding the remit of the intelligence grouping. In response, the Australian Government expressed concern that Wellington was undermining collective efforts to combat what it regarded as Chinese aggression.[74][75] Mahuta's remarks were echoed by New Zealand Prime MinisterJacinda Ardern who claimed that while New Zealand was still committed to the Five Eyes alliance, it would not use the network as its first point for communicating on non-security matters. While The Telegraph's defence editor Con Coughlin and British Conservative Member of Parliament Bob Seely criticised New Zealand for undermining the Five Eyes' efforts to put a united front against Beijing, the Chinese Global Times praised New Zealand for putting its own national interests over the Five Eyes.[76][77][78]
In late April 2021, the Global Times reported that employees of companies and organisations considered to be "at-risk" of foreign infiltration travelling to the Five Eyes countries would be monitored by the Chinese Ministry of State Security. These employees will be required to report their travel destinations, agendas, and meetings with foreign personnel to Chinese authorities. Other security measures include undergoing "pre-departure spying education" and leave their electronic devices at home and bring new ones abroad. These measures came at a time of heightened tensions between China and the Five Eyes countries.[79][80]
In mid-December 2021, the United States Secretary of StateAntony Blinken along with the Foreign Ministers of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement criticising the exclusion of opposition candidates, the Hong Kong national security law, and urging China to respect human rights and freedoms in Hong Kong in accordance with the Sino-British Joint Declaration.[81][82] In response, the Chinese Government claimed the Hong Kong elections were fair and criticised the Five Eyes for interfering in Hong Kong's domestic affairs.[83][84]
The Five Eyes alliance is sort of an artifact of the post World War II era where the Anglophone countries are the major powers banded together to sort of co-operate and share the costs of intelligence gathering infrastructure. ... The result of this was over decades and decades some sort of a supra-national intelligence organisation that doesn't answer to the laws of its own countries. —Edward Snowden[9]
One of the core principles is that members do not spy on other governments in the alliance. US Director of National Intelligence Admiral Dennis C. Blair said in 2013: "We do not spy on each other. We just ask."[88]
In recent years, documents of the FVEY have shown that they are intentionally spying on one another's citizens and sharing the collected information with each other, although the FVEYs countries claim that all intelligence sharing was done legally, according to the domestic law of the respective nations.[10][89][90][11][91]Shami Chakrabarti, the director of the advocacy groupLiberty, claimed that the FVEY alliance increases the ability of member states to "subcontract their dirty work" to each other.[92] The former NSA contractor Edward Snowden described the FVEY as a "supra-national intelligence organisation that doesn't answer to the laws of its own countries". While many claims of illegal intelligence sharing among FVEY nations have been made, only once has any FVEY intelligence agency been shown to have broken the law with intelligence sharing in Canada.[9]
As a result of Snowden's disclosures, the FVEY alliance has become the subject of a growing amount of controversy in parts of the world:
Canada: In late 2013, Canadian federal judge Richard Mosley strongly rebuked the CSIS for outsourcing its surveillance of Canadians to overseas partner agencies. A 51-page court ruling asserts that the CSIS and other Canadian federal agencies have been illegally enlisting FVEY allies in global surveillance dragnets, while keeping domestic federal courts in the dark.[93][94][95]
New Zealand: In 2014, the NZSIS and the GCSB of New Zealand were asked by the New Zealand Parliament to clarify if they had received any monetary contributions from members of the FVEY alliance. Both agencies withheld relevant information and refused to disclose any possible monetary contributions from the FVEY.[96]David Cunliffe, leader of the Labour Party, asserted that the public is entitled to be informed.[96]
European Union: In early 2014, the European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs released a draft report which confirmed that the intelligence agencies of New Zealand and Canada have cooperated with the NSA under the Five Eyes programme and may have been actively sharing the personal data of EU citizens. The EU report did not investigate if any international or domestic US laws were broken by the US and did not claim that any FVEY nation was illegally conducting intelligence collection on the EU. The NSA maintains that any intelligence collection done on the EU was in accordance with domestic US law and international law. So far, no court case has found the NSA broke any laws while spying on the EU.[97][98]
United Kingdom: In 2013, the British Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee conducted an investigation and concluded that the GCHQ had broken no domestic British laws in its intelligence sharing operations with the NSA. According the investigation "It has been alleged that GCHQ circumvented UK law by using the NSA’s PRISM programme to access the content of private communications. From the evidence we have seen, we have concluded that this is unfounded. We have reviewed the reports that GCHQ produced on the basis of intelligence sought from the US, and we are satisfied that they conformed with GCHQ’s statutory duties. The legal authority for this is contained in the Intelligence Services Act 1994. Further, in each case where GCHQ sought information from the US, a warrant for interception, signed by a Minister, was already in place, in accordance with the legal safeguards contained in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000."[99]
United States: So far, no court case has been brought against any US intelligence community member claiming that they went around US domestic law to have foreign countries spy on US citizens and give that intelligence to the US. However, this may change as attention is paid to the anticipated public releases regarding Operation Lobos 1, Operation Trojan Shield and Project Habitance. These operations received information from foreign government's for spying on U.S. citizens. Operation Trojan Shield is the only operation confirmed to have been initialized by the FBI, but required the Australian government to execute the operation as it wasn't legal in the United States. 17 U.S. citizens have been charged in U.S. federal court between 2021 and 2024, but none of the cases as of April 2024 had proceeded past the initial pretrial stages.
Other international cooperatives
Beginning with its founding by the United States and United Kingdom in 1946, the alliance expanded twice, inducting Canada in 1948 and Australia and New Zealand in 1956, establishing the Five Eyes as it remains to this day.[100][101] Further, there are nations termed "Third Party Partners" that share their intelligence with the Five Eyes despite not being formal members. While the Five Eyes is rooted in a particular agreement with specific operations amongst the five nations, similar sharing agreements have been set up independently and for specific purposes; for example, according to Edward Snowden, the NSA has a "massive body" called the Foreign Affairs Directorate dedicated to partnering with foreign countries beyond the alliance.[102]
Six Eyes (proposed)
Several countries have been prospective members of the Five Eyes. Israel,[103]Singapore, South Korea,[104] and Japan have or continue to collaborate with the alliance, though none are formally members.[105] According to French news magazineL'Obs, in 2009, the United States propositioned France to join the treaty and form a subsequent "Six Eyes" alliance. French President at the time Nicolas Sarkozy required that France have the same status as the other members, including the signing of a "no-spy agreement". This proposal was approved by the director of the NSA, but rejected by the director of the CIA and by President Barack Obama, resulting in a refusal from France.[106]
In 2013 it was reported that Germany was interested in joining the Five Eyes alliance.[107][108] At that time, several members of the United States Congress, including Tim Ryan and Charles Dent, were pushing for Germany's entrance to the Five Eyes alliance.[109]
Five Eyes Plus
Since 2018, through an initiative sometimes termed "Five Eyes Plus 3", Five Eyes formed associations with France, Germany and Japan to introduce an information-sharing framework to counter threats arising from foreign activities of China as well as Russia.[110][111] Five Eyes plus France, Japan and South Korea share information about North Korea's military activities including ballistic missiles, in an arrangement sometimes dubbed "Five Eyes Plus".[112]
Nine Eyes
The Nine Eyes is a different arrangement that consists of the same members of Five Eyes working with Denmark, France, the Netherlands and Norway.[100][101]
Fourteen Eyes
A map of the Fourteen Eyes countries
According to a document leaked by Edward Snowden, there is another working agreement among 14 nations officially known as SIGINT Seniors Europe, or "SSEUR".[113] These "14 Eyes" consist of the same members of Nine Eyes plus Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden.[100][101]
Further intelligence sharing collaborations
As spelled out by Privacy International, there are a number of issue-specific intelligence agreements that include some or all the above nations and numerous others, such as:[114][115]
A shared effort of the Five Eyes nations in "focused cooperation" on computer network exploitation with Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey;
Club of Berne: 17 members including primarily European States; the US is not a member;
Maximator: an intelligence alliance between Denmark, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Sweden
The Counterterrorist Group: a wider membership than the 17 European states that make up the Club of Berne, and includes the US;
NATO Special Committee: made up of the heads of the security services of NATO's 32 member countries
Virtual Global Taskforce - 14 Member country law enforcement agencies intelligence and law enforcement group who operate together to stop online child sex abuse. Australia, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Columbia, Switzerland, Netherlands, Italy, South Korea, Canada, New Zealand, U.A.E., Philippines, United States.
^Kerbaj, Richard (2022). The Secret History of Five Eyes: The untold story of the shadowy international spy network, through its targets, traitors and spies. London: John Blake. pp. 54–55. ISBN9781789465037.
^DeYoung, Karen; Walter Pincus (27 June 2007). "CIA Releases Files On Past Misdeeds". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 21 January 2014. Retrieved 2 February 2014. A one-paragraph memo recounts planning for a "project involving the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, then premier of the Republic of Congo.
^Anderlini, Jamil (1 June 2014). "Tiananmen Square: the long shadow". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 6 June 2014. Retrieved 2 June 2014. The extraction missions, aided by MI6, the UK's Secret Intelligence Service, and the CIA, according to many accounts, had scrambler devices, infrared signallers, night-vision goggles and weapons.
^יוסי מלמן, קירבה יוצאת דופן: על שיתוף הפעולה המודיעיני בין ישראל לארצות הברית, מעריב השבוע, 11 בספטמבר 2013 (Google translates as "Yossi Melman, an unusual closeness: about the intelligence cooperation between Israel and the United States, Maariv this week, September 11, 2013")
Smith, Michael (2022). The Real Special Relationship : The True Story of How The British and US Secret Services Work Together. London: Arcade. ISBN978-1-4711-8679-0.
Williams, Brad. "Why the Five Eyes? Power and Identity in the Formation of a Multilateral Intelligence Grouping." Journal of Cold War Studies 25, no. 1 (2023): 101-137.
The Five Eyes brings the UK, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand into the world’s most complete and comprehensive intelligence alliance
Despite the fact that the alliance is known throughout the world and its existence is subject of endless debates, the real knowledge of how the Five Eyes works is still clouded by the security measures that involves almost everything related to the Five Eyes.
The Five Eyes brings the UK, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand into the world’s most complete and comprehensive intelligence alliance.
For more than 70 years, the once-secret post-war alliance of the five English-speaking nations has been an infrastructure of surveillance with a global reach and ageing is not a problem for the FVEY, which remains one of the most complex and far-reaching intelligence and espionage alliances in our history.
The Five Eyes (FVEY) is widely regarded as the world’s most significant intelligence alliance. The origins of it can be traced back to the context of the Second World War and by its necessity of sharing vital information mainly between Britain and the United States so both countries could enhance their close war effort.
The Five Eyes was formally founded in the aftermath of the Second World War, through the multilateral agreement for co-operation in signals intelligence (SIGINT), known as the UKUSA Agreement, on 5 March 1946.
Initially, compromising only the UK and the United States, it expanded to also include Canada in 1948 and Australia and New Zealand in 1956, all of these last three English-speaking countries, members of the Commonwealth of Nations and with similar political systems when compared to Britain. Thereby, the ‘Five Eyes’ term was created from the lengthy ‘AUS/CAN/NZ/UK/ Eyes Only’ classification level that included the ‘eyes’ that could have access to high profile papers and information.
The secretiveness of the alliance is so severe that the treaty that created it was not in the knowledge of Gough Whitlam, then Prime Minister of Australia, as late as 1973 and it did not come to the public attention until 2005. Only in June 2010, the full text of the UKUSA Agreement was released by the British and American governments and for the first time officially recognised.
It’s worth mentioning the importance of the UKUSA Agreement and the subsequent Five Eyes for the Special Relationship. It helped to forge the basis for a stronger co-operation between the UK and the United States in the Cold War period fostering mutual trust and deepening the links between the two countries. In other words, the Agreement consolidated the Special Relationship between Britain and the United States.
The co-operation was crucial for both countries during the Cold War, for Britain, an example was the Five Eyes role in providing complementary intelligence for tracking Soviet submarines with ballistic missiles in the North Atlantic and the North Sea, and for the United States, it relied on long-established British listening posts in territories that were part of Britain’s empire for signals of intelligence, especially in the Middle East.
Few documents are accessible to the public, but with the ones that have been officially realised it is possible to know the primary extent of the Agreement.
For more than 70 years, the once-secret post-war alliance of the five English-speaking nations has been an infrastructure of surveillance with a global reach and ageing is not a problem for the FVEY, which remains one of the most complex and far-reaching intelligence and espionage alliances in our history.
Despite the fact that the alliance is known throughout the world and its existence is subject of endless debates, the real knowledge of how the Five Eyes works is still clouded by the security measures that involves almost everything related to the Five Eyes.
The secretiveness of the alliance is so severe that the treaty that created it was not in the knowledge of Gough Whitlam, then Prime Minister of Australia, as late as 1973 and it did not come to the public attention until 2005. Only in June 2010, the full text of the UKUSA Agreement was released by the British and American governments and for the first time officially recognised.
It’s worth mentioning the importance of the UKUSA Agreement and the subsequent Five Eyes for the Special Relationship. It helped to forge the basis for a stronger co-operation between the UK and the United States in the Cold War period fostering mutual trust and deepening the links between the two countries. In other words, the Agreement consolidated the Special Relationship between Britain and the United States.
The co-operation was crucial for both countries during the Cold War, for Britain, an example was the Five Eyes role in providing complementary intelligence for tracking Soviet submarines with ballistic missiles in the North Atlantic and the North Sea, and for the United States, it relied on long-established British listening posts in territories that were part of Britain’s empire for signals of intelligence, especially in the Middle East.
Few documents are accessible to the public, but with the ones that have been officially realised it is possible to know the primary extent of the Agreement.
According to the original declassified treaty of 1946, ‘the parties agree to the exchange of the products of the following operations relating to foreign communications: collection of traffic, acquisition of communication documents and equipment, traffic analysis, cryptanalysis, decryption and translation, acquisition of information regarding communication organisations, practices, procedures, and equipment’. This shows the initial scope of the treaty and its ambitions.
Furthermore, it is known that each member of the alliance is responsible for intelligence gathering and analysis over specific regions of the world. Britain monitors Europe, Western Russia, Middle East and Hong Kong. Meanwhile, the United States also oversees the Middle East plus China, Russia, Africa and the Caribbean. Australia is responsible for South and East Asia and New Zealand for the South Pacific and Southeast Asia. Canada monitors the interior of Russia and China and parts of Latin America. In spite of this division, they work mainly together, and the ‘final product’ generally is a result of more than one of its members; helping each other is an essential part of this agreement.
For more than 70 years, the once-secret post-war alliance of the five English-speaking nations has been an infrastructure of surveillance with a global reach and ageing is not a problem for the FVEY, which remains one of the most complex and far-reaching intelligence and espionage alliances in our history.
Despite the fact that the alliance is known throughout the world and its existence is subject of endless debates, the real knowledge of how the Five Eyes works is still clouded by the security measures that involves almost everything related to the Five Eyes.
The secretiveness of the alliance is so severe that the treaty that created it was not in the knowledge of Gough Whitlam, then Prime Minister of Australia, as late as 1973 and it did not come to the public attention until 2005. Only in June 2010, the full text of the UKUSA Agreement was released by the British and American governments and for the first time officially recognised.
It’s worth mentioning the importance of the UKUSA Agreement and the subsequent Five Eyes for the Special Relationship. It helped to forge the basis for a stronger co-operation between the UK and the United States in the Cold War period fostering mutual trust and deepening the links between the two countries. In other words, the Agreement consolidated the Special Relationship between Britain and the United States.
The co-operation was crucial for both countries during the Cold War, for Britain, an example was the Five Eyes role in providing complementary intelligence for tracking Soviet submarines with ballistic missiles in the North Atlantic and the North Sea, and for the United States, it relied on long-established British listening posts in territories that were part of Britain’s empire for signals of intelligence, especially in the Middle East.
Few documents are accessible to the public, but with the ones that have been officially realised it is possible to know the primary extent of the Agreement.
According to the original declassified treaty of 1946, ‘the parties agree to the exchange of the products of the following operations relating to foreign communications: collection of traffic, acquisition of communication documents and equipment, traffic analysis, cryptanalysis, decryption and translation, acquisition of information regarding communication organisations, practices, procedures, and equipment’. This shows the initial scope of the treaty and its ambitions.
Furthermore, it is known that each member of the alliance is responsible for intelligence gathering and analysis over specific regions of the world. Britain monitors Europe, Western Russia, Middle East and Hong Kong. Meanwhile, the United States also oversees the Middle East plus China, Russia, Africa and the Caribbean. Australia is responsible for South and East Asia and New Zealand for the South Pacific and Southeast Asia. Canada monitors the interior of Russia and China and parts of Latin America. In spite of this division, they work mainly together, and the ‘final product’ generally is a result of more than one of its members; helping each other is an essential part of this agreement.
The Five Eyes brings the UK, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand into the world’s most complete and comprehensive intelligence alliance.
The Five Eyes (FVEY) is widely regarded as the world’s most significant intelligence alliance. The origins of it can be traced back to the context of the Second World War and by its necessity of sharing vital information mainly between Britain and the United States so both countries could enhance their close war effort.
The Five Eyes was formally founded in the aftermath of the Second World War, through the multilateral agreement for co-operation in signals intelligence (SIGINT), known as the UKUSA Agreement, on 5 March 1946.
Initially, compromising only the UK and the United States, it expanded to also include Canada in 1948 and Australia and New Zealand in 1956, all of these last three English-speaking countries, members of the Commonwealth of Nations and with similar political systems when compared to Britain. Thereby, the ‘Five Eyes’ term was created from the lengthy ‘AUS/CAN/NZ/UK/ Eyes Only’ classification level that included the ‘eyes’ that could have access to high profile papers and information.
For more than 70 years, the once-secret post-war alliance of the five English-speaking nations has been an infrastructure of surveillance with a global reach and ageing is not a problem for the FVEY, which remains one of the most complex and far-reaching intelligence and espionage alliances in our history.
Despite the fact that the alliance is known throughout the world and its existence is subject of endless debates, the real knowledge of how the Five Eyes works is still clouded by the security measures that involves almost everything related to the Five Eyes.
The secretiveness of the alliance is so severe that the treaty that created it was not in the knowledge of Gough Whitlam, then Prime Minister of Australia, as late as 1973 and it did not come to the public attention until 2005. Only in June 2010, the full text of the UKUSA Agreement was released by the British and American governments and for the first time officially recognised.
It’s worth mentioning the importance of the UKUSA Agreement and the subsequent Five Eyes for the Special Relationship. It helped to forge the basis for a stronger co-operation between the UK and the United States in the Cold War period fostering mutual trust and deepening the links between the two countries. In other words, the Agreement consolidated the Special Relationship between Britain and the United States.
The co-operation was crucial for both countries during the Cold War, for Britain, an example was the Five Eyes role in providing complementary intelligence for tracking Soviet submarines with ballistic missiles in the North Atlantic and the North Sea, and for the United States, it relied on long-established British listening posts in territories that were part of Britain’s empire for signals of intelligence, especially in the Middle East.
Few documents are accessible to the public, but with the ones that have been officially realised it is possible to know the primary extent of the Agreement.
According to the original declassified treaty of 1946, ‘the parties agree to the exchange of the products of the following operations relating to foreign communications: collection of traffic, acquisition of communication documents and equipment, traffic analysis, cryptanalysis, decryption and translation, acquisition of information regarding communication organisations, practices, procedures, and equipment’. This shows the initial scope of the treaty and its ambitions.
Furthermore, it is known that each member of the alliance is responsible for intelligence gathering and analysis over specific regions of the world. Britain monitors Europe, Western Russia, Middle East and Hong Kong. Meanwhile, the United States also oversees the Middle East plus China, Russia, Africa and the Caribbean. Australia is responsible for South and East Asia and New Zealand for the South Pacific and Southeast Asia. Canada monitors the interior of Russia and China and parts of Latin America. In spite of this division, they work mainly together, and the ‘final product’ generally is a result of more than one of its members; helping each other is an essential part of this agreement.
Nevertheless, the regional division does not imply that the parties are bounded to direct its efforts only to those regions, this means that while Britain is ‘responsible’ for some areas, it has not the obligation to just monitor those parts of the world.
The current role of the Five Eyes has many ramifications, such as the ‘maritime domain’ where the alliance monitors shipping traffic passing through strategic maritime areas and the ‘aerospace domain’ which covers ballistic missile tests, foreign satellite deployments and the military activities of relevant air forces.
Terrorist organisations and weapons business deals made by ‘problematic regimes’ are also within the scope of the Five Eyes; these two, in particular, are growing source of worries for all the five members and the intelligence co-operation between them is essential to keep their governments updated with the most recent information. This aids the process of policy-making, for the data collected and analysed by the alliance may turn out to be vital for more than a time of crises but also for the daily basis of government; notably, these daily efforts consist in tracking and identifying possible sources of terrorism and other non-conventional threats.
Such complex agreement would never exist if not by the convergent aspects of all the five members. They share common principles, such the liberal democratic values, similar or complementary national interests and cultures. Beyond that, since the Second World War Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States share same threats to their national security be them conventional or not.
All these characteristics unify their efforts and foster mutual trust, indispensable to the Five Eyes. Within the context of mutual trust, the five partners seem not to target each other; nevertheless, there are no means of ensuring that spying on each other does not happen.
In addition, the Five Eyes works with various ‘Third Party’ countries, the co-operation with Denmark, France, Norway and the Netherlands receives the name of ‘Nine Eyes’, and there is the ‘Fourteen Eyes’ which consists of the previously mentioned Nine Eyes plus Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden. However, the official name of the Fourteen Eyes is SIGINT Seniors Europe (SSEUR), and its primary objective is to coordinate the exchange of military signals amongst its members.
It is also worth to mention that many countries mentioned above already have other intelligence co-operation links, especially through NATO Special Committee which gathers the heads of the security services of its parties.
So, after more than 70 years, the Five Eyes is widely regarded as the ‘gold standard’ of intelligence alliances. Its scope grows accordingly with the new technologies and the following evolving security concerns arising from those new technologies, thereby, the Eyes have in mind that the digital world cannot be underestimated; the opponents of the UK and the United States recognise that as well, as the number of cyber attacks grows unceasingly.
Therefore, the Five Eyes is an enormous asset to keep the citizens of the ‘English-Speaking World’ safer and is the result of decades of relationship cemented on trust and confidence amongst its members.
By uniting services from Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand it is possible to affirm that its potential is almost limitless and meets no parallel.
Research Article
Getting the Better of the Bargain: Technical Intelligence, Arms Sales, and Anglo-Israeli Relations 1967–1974
