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Wednesday, October 23, 2013
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CNN Reports: Germany has information that the United
States might have monitored Chancellor Angela Merkel's cell phone, a
German government spokesman said Wednesday.
"We have immediately sent
a question to our American partners and have asked for immediate and
wide-ranging clarification," spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a written
statement.
Both governments said that Merkel spoke about the issue with President Barack Obama during a phone call Wednesday.
Obama told her that the
United States "is not monitoring and will not monitor" her
communications, White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
Merkel made it clear
that, if the information about the U.S. having monitored her phone were
true, it would be "completely unacceptable," Seibert said.
"Close friends and
partners, such as Germany and the USA have been for decades, cannot have
monitoring of communication of a head of government," Seibert said.
"This would be a grave breach of trust. Such practices have to stop
immediately."
Germany and other nations
expressed concerns about alleged U.S. spying after former National
Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden leaked classified information
about American surveillance programs.
German news magazine Der
Spiegel reported in June that classified leaks from Snowden detailed how
the agency bugged EU offices in Washington and New York as well as
conducting an "electronic eavesdropping operation" that tapped into an
EU building in Brussels.
Merkel spoke with Obama
by phone in July about allegations that the United States was conducting
surveillance on its European allies
According to AP reporters German Chancellor Angela Merkel complained to
President Barack Obama on Wednesday after learning that U.S.
intelligence may have targeted her mobile phone, saying that would be "a
serious breach of trust" if confirmed.
For its part, the White House denied that the U.S. is listening in on Merkel's phone calls now.
"The president assured the chancellor that the United States
is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the
chancellor," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. "The United States
greatly values our close cooperation with Germany on a broad range of
shared security challenges."
However, Carney did not specifically say that that U.S. had never monitored or obtained Merkel's communications.
The German government said it responded after receiving "information
that the chancellor's cellphone may be monitored" by U.S. intelligence.
It wouldn't elaborate, but German news magazine Der Spiegel, which has
published material from NSA leaker Edward Snowden, said its research
triggered the response.
Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a statement the chancellor
made clear to Obama in a phone call that "she views such practices, if
the indications are confirmed ... as completely unacceptable."
Merkel said among close partners such as Germany and the U.S., "there
must not be such surveillance of a head of government's communication,"
Seibert added. "That would be a serious breach of trust. Such practices
must be stopped immediately."
Carney, the White House spokesman, said the U.S. is examining
Germany's concerns as part of an ongoing review of how the U.S. gathers
intelligence.
The White House has cited that review in responding to similar spying concerns from France, Brazil and other countries.
U.S. allies knew that the Americans were spying on them, but they had no idea how much.
As details of National Security Agency spying programs have become
public, citizens, activists and politicians in countries from Latin
America to Europe have lined up to express shock and outrage at the
scope of Washington's spying.
Merkel had previously raised concerns over the electronic
eavesdropping issue when Obama visited Germany in June, has demanded
answers from the U.S. government and backed calls for greater European
data protection. Wednesday's statement, however, was much more sharply
worded and appeared to reflect frustration over the answers provided so
far by the U.S. government.
Merkel called for U.S. authorities to clarify the extent of
surveillance in Germany and to provide answers to "questions that the
German government asked months ago," Seibert said.
Overseas politicians are also using the threat to their citizens'
privacy to drum up their numbers at the polls — or to distract attention
from their own domestic problems. Some have even downplayed the matter
to keep good relations with Washington.
After a Paris newspaper reported the NSA had swept up 70.3 million
French telephone records in a 30-day period, the French government
called the U.S. ambassador in for an explanation and put the issue of
personal data protection on the agenda of the European Union summit that
opens Thursday.
"Why are these practices, as they're reported — which remains to be
clarified — unacceptable? First because they are taking place between
partners, between allies, and then because they clearly are an affront
to private life," Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, the French government
spokeswoman, said Wednesday.
But the official French position — that friendly nations should not
spy on each another — can't be taken literally, a former French foreign
minister said.
"The magnitude of the eavesdropping is what shocked us," Bernard
Kouchner said in a radio interview. "Let's be honest, we eavesdrop too.
Everyone is listening to everyone else. But we don't have the same means
as the United States, which makes us jealous. "
The French government, which until this week had been largely silent
in the face of widespread U.S. snooping on its territory, may have other
reasons to speak out now. The furor over the NSA managed to draw media
attention away from France's controversial expulsion of a Roma family at
a time when French President Francois Hollande's popularity is at a
historic low. Just 23 percent of French approve of the job he is doing,
according to a recent poll.
In Germany, opposition politicians, the media and privacy activists
have been vocal in their outrage over the U.S. eavesdropping. Up until
now, Merkel had worked hard to contain the damage to U.S.-German
relations and refrained from saying anything bad about the Americans.
Merkel has said previously her country was "dependent" on cooperation
with the American spy agencies — crediting an American tip as the
reason that security services foiled an Islamic terror plot in 2007 that
targeted U.S. soldiers and citizens in Germany.
In Italy, major newspapers reported that a parliamentary committee
was told the U.S. had intercepted phone calls, emails and text messages
of Italians. Premier Enrico Letta raised the topic of spying during a
visit Wednesday with Secretary of State John Kerry. A senior State
Department official said Kerry made it clear the Obama administration's
goal was to strike the right balance between security needs and privacy
expectations.
Few countries have responded as angrily to U.S. spying than Brazil.
President Dilma Rousseff took the extremely rare diplomatic step of
canceling a visit to Washington where she had been scheduled to receive a
full state dinner this week.
Analysts say her anger is genuine, though also politically
profitable, for Rousseff faces a competitive re-election campaign next
year.
David Fleischer, a political scientist at the University of Brasilia,
said since the Sept. 11 attacks Brazilian governments knew the
Americans had stepped up spying efforts.
"But what the government did not know was that Dilma's office had been hacked as well," Fleischer said.
Information the NSA collected in Mexico appears to have largely
focused on drug-fighting policies or government personnel trends. But
the U.S. agency also allegedly spied on the emails of two Mexican
presidents, Enrique Pena Nieto, the incumbent, and Felipe Calderon.
The Mexican government has reacted cautiously, calling the targeting
of the presidents "unacceptable." Pena Nieto has demanded an
investigation but hasn't cancelled any visits or contacts, a strategy
that Mexico's opposition and some analysts see as weak.
"Other countries, like Brazil, have had responses that are much more
resounding than our country," said Sen. Gabriela Cuevas of Mexico's
conservative National Action Party.
Yet Mexico has much-closer economic and political ties to the United
States that the Mexican government apparently does not want to endanger.
Beyond politics, the NSA espionage has been greeted with relative
equanimity in Mexico, since the government has had close intelligence
cooperation with the United States for years in the war on drugs.
"The country we should really be spying on now is New Zealand, to see
if we can get enough information so the national team can win a
qualifying berth at the World Cup," Mexican columnist Guadalupe Loaeza
wrote.
