WikiLeaks: NSA spied on last 3 French presidents
Previous leaks said U.S. had targeted Germany’s leader
PARIS — WikiLeaks published documents late Tuesday it says show the U.S. National Security Agency eavesdropped on the last three French presidents.
There was no instant confirmation of the accuracy of the documents released in collaboration with French daily newspaper Liberation and investigative website Mediapart.
WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson said he was confident the documents were authentic, noting that WikiLeaks’ previous mass disclosures have proved to be accurate.
There was no immediate comment from the White House or the offices of French President Francois Hollande or previous President Jacques Chirac, reportedly targeted by the eavesdropping.
An aide to Hollande’s predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy said the former president considers such methods unacceptable, generally speaking and especially from an ally
U.S. National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said in a statement that the American government would not comment on the specifics of the leak.
“As a general matter, we do not conduct any foreign intelligence surveillance activities unless there is a specific and validated national security purpose. This applies to ordinary citizens and world leaders alike,” he said.
Ever since documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden showed in 2013 that the NSA had been eavesdropping on the cellphone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, it had been understood that the U.S. had been using the digital spying agency to intercept the conversations of allied politicians.
Still, the new revelations are bound to cause diplomatic embarrassment for the Americans, even though allied nations have been spying on each other for centuries.
Late Tuesday, several French politicians posted messages to social media voicing their disgust with the reports.
“And one more time we find out that the U.S. has no allies, they only have targets or vassals,” Socialist lawmaker Jean-Jacques Urvoas said in a message posted on Twitter in both French and English.
Hollande said last year that he discussed his concerns about NSA surveillance with President Barack Obama and that the two men had patched up their differences.
After the Merkel disclosures, Obama ordered a wholesale review of NSA spying on allies, after officials suggested that senor White House officials had not approved many operations that were largely on autopilot. After the review, officials said Obama halted the spying on the leaders of allied countries, if not their aides.
WikiLeaks, on its website, listed the contents of what it said were five selected “top” intercepts of communications involving French presidents — on subjects including a top U.N. appointment, the Middle East peace process, and the euro crisis — between 2006 and 2012.
The report highlighted what were said to be partially redacted phone numbers listed by the NSA as top French official “intercept targets,” including that of the French president’s own cellphone.
Hrafnsson refused to comment on how WikiLeaks obtained the documents or give specifics about what else might be appearing in the French press, but did say that “they can expect more revelations in the near future.”
The WikiLeaks release came a day before France’s National Assembly is expected to pass a surveillance bill legalizing broad surveillance of terrorism suspects, including allowing intelligence services to vacuum up metadata in hopes of preventing imminent attacks.
The bill was proposed last year, but deadly Paris attacks by extremists in January gave it added urgency for the government.