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Europeans outraged over NSA spying, threaten action

Louise Osborne
Special for USA TODAY
In this image made from video released by WikiLeaks on Oct. 11, 2013, former National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden, center, receives the Sam Adams Award in Moscow, Russia.
  • The report in %22El Mundo%22 is based on a document it says was provided by Edward Snowden
  • The report comes on the heels of similar allegations in France and Germany
  • The document says the NSA monitored calls%2C but not their content

BERLIN - Europeans on Monday lashed out at the Obama administration for its NSA spying program and demanded more answers about an anti-terrorism tool they say is being turned on allies for no reason.

Spain became the latest U.S. ally to demand answers after a Spanish newspaper reported that the National Security Agency monitored more than 60 million phone calls in that country during one month alone.

Spain's foreign minister on Monday called the report "unacceptable." German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said she believed the Americans were using the information to gather economic intelligence apart from terrorism.

She said European nations should consider suspending a post-9/11 agreement known as the SWIFT pact that allows the United States access to bank transfer data to track the flow of terrorist money.

"It really isn't enough to be outraged," she told rbb-Inforadio. "This would be a signal that something can happen and make clear to the Americans that the (EU's) policy is changing."

But British Prime Minister David Cameron suggested Monday that the outrage should be over the publication of state secrets, which he said is informing terrorists of the ways that the West is trying to protect its citizens.

He said his government was likely to act to stop newspapers publishing what he called damaging leaks.

"If they (newspapers) don't demonstrate some social responsibility it will be very difficult for government to stand back and not to act," Cameron told parliament, saying Britain's Guardian newspaper had "gone on" to print damaging material after initially agreeing to destroy other sensitive data.

The Guardian is one of several newspapers in Europe and the United States that has been publishing details of NSA anti-terror surveillance programs leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who is wanted by the United States on espionage charges. Snowden fled to Russia which has declined to honor a request for his arrest by the Obama administration.

Spain, Germany and France were reportedly part of an NSA sweep of millions of phone transactions records routed through the USA. The sweep gathered only the phone numbers involved in a call, and did not archive or listen in on conversations.

In Spain, El Mundo said that a document provided by Snowden shows that the NSAtapped phone calls in Spain from Dec. 10, 2012, until Jan. 8, 2013.

The report comes a week after Le Monde reported similar allegations of U.S. spying in France.

The program is aimed at creating a massive database of calls in case U.S. investigators identified a certain phone number as belonging to a suspected terrorist and wanted to see what numbers the phone had called.

German news weekly Der Spiegel reported the NSA had kept tabs on the mobile phone calls of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. It did not name its source, but has published material from Snowden in the past.

Another German paper, Bild am Sonntag, said Obama knew of the NSA spying on Merkel – and approved of the efforts, citing a senior NSA official.

Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, the German justice minister, says such actions should force Europeans consider suspending the SWIFT agreement at the very least. The agreement allows access to funds transferred through the private, Belgium-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which handles the movement of money between banks worldwide.

"We have asked the U.S. ambassador, as in two previous instances, to facilitate the government in getting the necessary information on this matter, which if confirmed, could lead to the breakdown of the traditional trust that have governed relations between the two countries," said Jose Manuel Garcia Margallo, according to Spanish newspaper, El Mundo.

An editorial written by the Washington correspondent for El Pais, another Spanish national newspaper, said that the USA was dedicating more of its efforts towards fixing problems with the website on its health care reforms than to the diplomatic crisis that has been sparked over allegations of U.S. spying in Europe.

"The damage the scandal could cause the U.S. is considerable," wrote Antonio Caño. "Brazil not only suspended the visit of its president, but also a program to buy military aircraft.

"Regarding Europe, there are multiple threats (as consequence of the spying scandal), that go from the sharing of anti-terror information to negotiations over the bilateral trade agreement. Even worse, the blind trust that should exist between the two blocks, whose alliance is vital to world stability, has been questioned."

The news comes just days after the U.S. ambassadors to Germany and France were summoned to their respective host government offices over claims that Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone had been tapped by the U.S. security agency and they had accessed records of 70 million French citizens.

Anand Menon, an associate fellow specializing in European security and defense policy at London-based think-tank Chatham House, said he thought the reaction to the allegations is more a "public reaction rather than a private one."

"When this sort of thing comes out I think governments need to show they're horrified and appalled and will do something about it, but I very much doubt any European government is particularly surprised," he said. "I very much doubt any European governments would turn down the chance of having transcripts of Barack Obama's phone calls."

Menon added he is "fairly sure" governments all spied on each other.

"I think there are two things: the surveillance of enormous amounts of private individuals' emails, which I think will be an issue," he said. "Then there's the stuff of elite level spying, which I don't suppose really surprises anyone…but it still comes as a slight shock to see it reported."

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