NSA taps embassy, UN office

NEW DELHI: The US National Security Agency targeted the Indian embassy in Washington and the Indian UN office in New York with sophisticated surveillance equipment that might have resulted in hard disks being copied, a report said yesterday.

The Hindu newspaper, in collaboration with the Guardian newspaper reporter Glenn Greenwald, said the Indian offices were on a top-secret list of countries chosen for intensive spying.

The NSA ‘‘selected India’s UN office and the embassy as [a] ‘location target’ for infiltrating their computers and telephones with hi-tech bugs’’, the paper said, citing a secret internal document from the spy agency.

India’s missions were marked for various snooping techniques including one codenamed ‘‘Lifesaver’’ which ‘‘facilitates imaging of the hard drive of computers’’.

India and the US have put past difficulties behind them and become firm allies over the last decade, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh set to meet US President Barack Obama in Washington tomorrow.

The revelations about US spying, leaked through documents obtained by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, have already strained relations between Mr Obama and his foreign allies, notably Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.

New Delhi previously defended widespread snooping on internet users.