Friday, October 25, 2013
US monitored calls of 35 world leaders, says report
General Keith Alexander, director of the NSA talks about monitoring programs during the Black Hat USA 2013 hacker convention in Las Vegas on July 31, 2013.
"In one recent case, a U.S. official provided NSA with 200 phone numbers to 35 world leaders," reads an excerpt from a confidential memo dated October 2006 which was quoted by the Guardian.
LONDON - The United States monitored the phone conversations of 35 world leaders according to classified documents leaked by fugitive whistleblower Edward Snowden, Britain's Guardian newspaper said on Thursday.
Phone numbers were passed on to the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) by an official in another government department, according to the documents, the Guardian said on its website.
It added that staff in the White House, State Department and the Pentagon were urged to share the contact details of foreign politicians.
"We are not going to comment publicly on every specific alleged intelligence activity, and as a matter of policy we have made clear that the United States gathers foreign intelligence of the type gathered by all nations," a White House spokeswoman said, reacting to the report.
The revelations come after Germany demanded answers from Washington over allegations Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone was bugged, the worst spat between the two countries in a decade.
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By Reuters
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