Europe furious at NSA reports
Issue may affect trade discussions
BERLIN — European leaders reacted with fury Sunday to allegations in a German magazine that the U. S. has conducted a wide-ranging effort to monitor European Union diplomatic offices and computer networks, with some saying that they expected such surveillance from enemies, not their closest economic partner.
It was the latest fallout from National Security Agency information apparently leaked by Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor whose detailing of classified information on the agency’s programs has shined a rare light on U. S. surveillance efforts that range far wider than previously understood.
Underscoring the depth of the European anger at the Obama administration over the allegations, top officials from several European countries said the reports of spying would figure into the future of transatlantic trade talks that began in June. The efforts would create the world’s largest free-trade zone, and European officials said Sunday that they suspected the target of U. S. intelligence interest was economic information, not military.
“Partners do not spy on each other,” said European Commissioner for Justice Viviane Reding at a public event in Luxembourg on Sunday. “We cannot negotiate over a big transatlantic market if there is the slightest doubt that our partners are carrying out spying activities on the offices of our negotiators.”
Other European leaders said they felt blindsided.
“It is shocking that the United States take measures against their most important, their nearest allies, comparable to measures taken in the past by the KGB, by the secret service of the Soviet Union,” European Parliament President Martin Schulz said Sunday.
“This is not the basis to build mutual trust, this is a contribution to build mutual mistrust,” he said, adding that he felt treated like an “enemy.”
Germany’s Der Spiegel newsmagazine reported that the NSA had placed listening devices in E.U. diplomatic offices in Washington and New York, had breached an E.U. computer network t hat provided access to internal e-mails and documents, and had accessed phone lines in E.U. headquarters in Brussels to monitor top officials’ phone conversations.
Later Sunday, Britain’s Guardian newspaper published portions of an internal NSA presentation that appear to detail several methods by which U. S. intelligence agencies monitored diplomats inside the U. S.
The Guardian also reported that another document lists 38 embassies and missions that U. S. intelligence agencies were monitoring in some way, including U. S. allies France, Italy, Japan, India and South Korea, and others including more traditional antagonists and Middle Eastern countries.