The US government surveilling other people is no news. The US government working through intermediaries to do something unpalatable is not new either. But I bet you never thought that would involve Ghana.

Some of the information released through wiki leaks reveals a lot of things. One shows that sometime last year, the head of Information Technology for the Ghana Gas company contacted Hacking team, an Italian company specialising in state of the art surveillance software. The request, apparently, was made on behalf of the US secret service.

Richard Attoh Okine, IT head for Ghana Gas,  wrote an e-mail to Hacking team, asking for the price of the Remote Control System (RCS). (Here’s the email on wikileaks)The RCS is a system designed to hack the devices of others, spy on them remotely, without the person having the faintest idea they are being surveilled.

It’s a state of the art thing, the likes of which the CIA or NSA might employ. So you would wonder why a Ghanaian civil servant is making such a request. Surely we’re not going to spy on our citizens?

A later e-mail explains why. Emad Shehata, who Attoh Okine spoke to after making the initial enquiry, says in a later released e-mail to her bosses that…

“I just had a call with a Ghanaian client. It’s a national petroleum company. The end client is the secret service agency, who for political-economic reasons can’t buy directly, but instead through one of their organisations”

Through one of their organisations? Is the Ghana Gas company, which is now meshed with GNPC, a subsidiary of the US government? GNPC is working closely with many foreign interests in the oil and gas sector. What else are we doing on behalf of our foreign partners?

Source: Shaun Riv