Pentagon Leak: Hungarian Leaders Reportedly Targeted by U.S. Surveillance

The recent leak of classified documents from the Pentagon is one of the biggest intelligence scandals in recent times. The documents revealed how the United States allegedly spies on both its allies and enemies, including some Hungarian officials.

As we reported earlier, a 10-member delegation of the European Parliament’s Committee of Inquiry into the use of Pegasus and similar spy software (PEGA) visited Hungary in February for a two-day visit to collect information on the alleged surveillance of journalists in the country. Although no evidence has been produced to date proving the role of Hungarian officials or intelligence services in the matter, evidence is emerging to the contrary, that in fact Hungarian politicians could have been the targets, rather than perpetrators of such illegal practices.

There has been an almost constant political give-and-take between Hungary and the US in recent times, with US Ambassador David Pressman in Budapest playing an active role. Now, however, it is the U.S. intelligence services who have something to explain, after several news portals reported that top secret information was leaked from the Pentagon.

Some of the leaked documents revealed the extent to which the US is putting surveillance on South Korea, Israel and Ukraine. In the latter case, the weaknesses of the Ukrainian military and details of a counter-attack in the spring have been revealed.

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Then, on Tuesday morning, The Economist published another detail of the document, revealing that US intelligence had been monitoring Hungarian, Israeli, and South Korean officials, in addition to Ukrainian generals. Moreover, according to the latest information, US agencies are also monitoring officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Surveillance techniques have also come to light, with one method the planting of a bug on a telephone.

Analysts say this could be one of the most significant intelligence scandals of the last decade, as evidenced by the fact that the leaked material originates from top-classified documents. Interestingly, the leaks started in small internet groups on a messaging channel containing memes, jokes, and racist statements, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The scandal started back in January, when an anonymous member of a group of just over a dozen members started posting files – many of which were classified as top secret.

The files mainly concerned intercepted communications from US allies such as Israel and South Korea, and US intelligence on Russia’s military plans.

The documents, estimated to number hundreds of files, remained there among members of a tiny group on the messaging platform Discord until early March, when another user posted dozens of documents to another group with a larger audience. From there, at least ten files migrated to a much larger community focused on the computer game Minecraft.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Justice are now working hard to find the answer to how the dozens of images showing classified documents ended up on the Internet. A government investigation launched on Friday at the request of the Department of Defense is looking into the source of the leak.

A senior Pentagon official told reporters on Monday that the leaked documents posed a very serious national security risk and could be used to spread disinformation, the BBC reported. Chris Meagher, the assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs, also said steps were being taken to investigate how the information was being disseminated and by whom. He did not say whether the Pentagon believed the documents were genuine, but said some appeared to have been altered.

The government in Budapest has not yet commented on the allegations that Hungarian officials may have been targeted by illegal surveillance techniques.

Featured photo via Pixabay