The Spanish prime minister, Mariano
Rajoy, has summoned the US ambassador to explain the latest revelations to
emerge from the files leaked by Edward Snowden, which suggest the National
Security Agency tracked more than 60m phone calls in Spain in the space of a month.
Spain's European secretary of state,
Íñigo Méndez de Vigo, is meeting James Costos as the White House struggles to
contain a growing diplomatic crisis following accusations that the NSA monitored the phones of scores of
allies, including the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.
El Mundo newspaper reported on Monday
that it had seen an NSA document that showed the US spy
agency had intercepted 60.5m phone calls in Spain between 10 December 2012 and
8 January this year.
An NSA graphic, entitled "Spain – last 30 days",
reportedly shows the daily flow of phone calls within Spain, and that on one
day alone – 11 December 2012 – the NSA monitored more than 3.5m phone calls. It
appears that the content of the calls was not monitored but the serial and
phone numbers of the handsets used, the locations, sim cards and the duration
of the calls were. Emails and other social media were also monitored.
The news comes as a parliamentary delegation from the EU
prepares to visit Washington to discuss the scale of US spying on its allies.
The EU's civil liberties committee will meet members of Congress to express
their concerns over the impact on EU citizens' fundamental right to privacy.
Last week Spain rejected a move by Germany, which wants the EU's
28 member states to sign a "no-spy deal" along the lines of an
agreement wanted by Berlin and Paris.
"We'll see once we have more information if we decide to
join with what France and Germany have done," Rajoy said at a press
conference in Brussels on Friday.
"But these aren't decisions
which correspond to the European Union. They are
questions related to national security and are the exclusive responsibility of
member states. France and Germany have decided to do one thing and the rest of
us may decide to do the same, or something else."
The White House and NSA are
coming under intense pressure to reveal the extent to which Obama and senior
administration officials knew about USsurveillance operations
targeting the leaders of allied countries.
Source: TheGuardian
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