A new report has come out of Der Spiegel - one of the newspapers combing through the top-secret National Security Agency documents leaked by ex-contractor Edward Snowden - revealing a troubling email hack to the Mexican president at the time.
The report says that, under a program called "Tailored Access Operations" or TAO, the National Security Agency (NSA) conducted surveillance on communications within one of Mexico's top government networks, including hacking then-President Felipe Calderon's public email account.
The top-secret documents said, "TAO successfully exploited a key mail server in the Mexican Presidencia domain within the Mexican Presidential network to gain first-ever access to President Felipe Calderon's public email account."
The specific name of TAO's mission was "Flatliquid," and it also included access to information containing "diplomatic, economic and leadership communications." The Mexican Presidencia domain also was used by some cabinet members of the Mexican government.
The NSA reported that the president's office was "a lucrative source" of insight into "Mexico's political system and internal stability."
Any stability in U.S. and Mexico relations is likely to be a thing of the past, as the relationship between the two countries has already been strained, after another leak from Edward Snowden revealed that Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff were targets of U.S. cyber-surveillance efforts. Brazil has since condemned the program at the U.N. after President Rousseff canceled a trip to Washington in September.
President Enrique Peña Nieto was also a target of NSA surveillance, as far back as the summer of 2012, when he was still a candidate for President of Mexico.