[rolandukor]

The way I see this is that it is pretty much business as usual. I think that anyone who sincerely believes that capable states do not employ similar tactics within their spy apparatus is engaging in self delusion.

States have historically spied on each other (allies and enemies). I can understand the sensationalist aspect of this as 'news', but IMHO there is nothing new here; move on.

Perhaps, someone here with a much better command of history than I do could help out with the latest time in history where the relevant technologies of the day were not key parts of nation states' intelligence gathering systems.