A top German official accused the United States on Sunday of using
"Cold War" methods against its allies, after a German magazine cited
secret intelligence documents to claim that U.S. spies bugged European
Union offices.
Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger was responding to
a report by German news weekly Der Spiegel, which claimed that the
U.S. National Security Agency eavesdropped on EU offices in
Washington, New York and Brussels. The magazine cited classified U.S.
documents taken by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that it said
it had partly seen.
"If the media reports are accurate, then this recalls the methods used
by enemies during the Cold War," Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said in a
statement to The Associated Press.
"It is beyond comprehension that our friends in the United States see
Europeans as enemies," she said, calling for an "immediate and
comprehensive" response from the U.S. government to the claims.
Other European officials demanded an explanation from the U.S.
"I am deeply worried and shocked about the allegations," European
Parliament President Martin Schulz said in a statement, according to
CNN. "If the allegations prove to be true, it would be an extremely
serious matter which will have a severe impact on EU-US relations. On
behalf of the European Parliament, I demand full clarification and
require further information speedily from the U.S. authorities with
regard to these allegations."
The revelations come at a particularly sensitive time for U.S.-E.U.
relations, as long-awaited talks about a new trade pact are scheduled
to begin next week. It is unclear how the latest report on NSA spying
are going to affect them, but the trade pact has been a centerpiece of
the Obama administrations diplomatic efforts in Europe for some time.
According to Der Spiegel, the NSA planted bugs in the EU's diplomatic
offices in Washington and infiltrated the building's computer network.
Similar measures were taken at the EU's mission to the United Nations
in New York, the magazine said.
Der Spiegel didn't publish the alleged NSA documents it cited or say
how it obtained access to them. But one of the report's authors is
Laura Poitras, an award-winning documentary filmmaker who interviewed
Snowden while he was holed up in Hong Kong.
The magazine also didn't specify how it learned of the NSA's alleged
eavesdropping efforts at a key EU office in Brussels. There, the NSA
used secure facilities at NATO headquarters nearby to dial into
telephone maintenance systems that would have allowed it to intercept
senior EU officials' calls and Internet traffic, Der Spiegel report
said.
Germany was allegedly the focus of the European spying, according to
The Guardian, categorising Washington's key European ally alongside
China, Iraq or Saudi Arabia in the intensity of the electronic
snooping.
During a trip through Europe two weeks ago, President Obama assured an
audience in Germany that America is not indiscriminately "rifling"
through the emails of ordinary European citizens, describing the
National Security Agency's surveillance programs as a "circumscribed"
system that has averted threats in America, Germany, and elsewhere.
Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger urged EU Commission President Jose Manuel
Barroso to take personal responsibility for investigating the
allegations.
The United States has defended its efforts to intercept electronic
communications overseas by arguing that this has helped prevent terror
attacks at home and abroad.
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