U.S. spy reports anger Europe

Embassies, diplomats were alleged targets

LONDON — Europe turned up the pressure on the Obama administration Monday to respond to new allegations that the U. S. bugged the embassies of some of its long-standing allies and eavesdropped on European Union diplomats around the world.

Leaders and officials of EU countries said that, if true, the reports of American spying on friendly nations were unacceptable and potentially damaging to relations across the Atlantic and to joint endeavors such as upcoming talks on a U. S.-EU free-trade pact.

“We cannot accept this kind of behavior from partners and allies,” French President Francois Hollande said Monday.

A spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel was equally blunt, saying, “We’re not in the Cold War anymore.”

The allegations appeared in Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine and Britain’s Guardian newspaper, both of which said the eavesdropping operation was revealed in documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the fugitive American believed to be in diplomatic limbo at a Moscow airport.

The Guardian said one document listed 38 foreign diplomatic missions as targets for electronic espionage, including such U.S. allies as Japan, Mexico, France and Italy.

Citing secret documents it had “partly seen,” Der Spiegel said the U. S. National Security Agency also tapped European Union offices at the United Nations and in Brussels, where summits of EU leaders are regularly held.

The new allegations add to the concern that many European leaders have already expressed over the alleged collection of mountains of data on the e-mails and phone calls of millions of their citizens by American intelligence agencies. Privacy laws are generally more stringent in Europe than in the U.S.

Some analysts dismiss such indignation as hypocritical, saying that all governments, including those professing shock over the latest accusations, routinely spy on both friends and enemies to protect their interests.

“I guarantee you that in European capitals, there are people who are interested in, if not what I had for breakfast, at least what my talking points might be should I end up meeting with their leaders,” President Barack Obama said at a news conference shortly after arriving in Tanzania on Monday. “That’s how intelligence services operate.”

Nonetheless, Obama said he’d told his advisers to “evaluate everything that’s being claimed” and promised to share the results with allies.