Germany appears to be the most snooped on EU country by the US, the map of secret surveillance activities by the National Security Agency shows. ‘Boundless Informant’ is among the data disclosed by former CIA contractor and NSA consultant Edward Snowden.
The color-coded map of secret surveillance activities by the NSA ranks
countries according to how much surveillance they are currently
undergoing – green for the least and red for the most watched.
While all EU member states boast variant shades of green, Germany
stands out color-coded orange.
The source behind the revelation of the top-secret NSA
surveillance program, already referred to as one of the most
significant intelligence leaks in US history, was uncovered late
last week. 29-year-old Snowden asked The Guardian to reveal his
identity, having fled to Hong Kong to escape retaliation by the
US authorities.
“The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to
intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast
majority of human communications are automatically ingested
without targeting,” he told The Guardian.
“I, sitting at my desk, certainly had the authority to
wire-tap anyone … even if you are not doing anything wrong, you
are being watched and recorded,” he added.
The Boundless Informant documents show NSA collecting up to 3
billion pieces of intelligence from US computer networks over a
30-day period ending in March 2013, according to The Guardian.
The tool reportedly allows users to select a country on a map,
view the metadata volume and select details about the collections
against this or that state.
Germany’s Interior Ministry had already been in contact with US
officials to find out whether there had been any infringement of
German citizens’ privacy lately. Chancellor Angela Merkel is due
to raise the issue of the NSA’s eavesdropping on Germany with
President Barack Obama, who said the monitoring program is a
means of defense against terrorism.
Senior European Union officials are also expected to discuss the
impact of NSA’s programs on the privacy of EU citizens during a
trans-Atlantic ministerial meeting in Dublin on Thursday.
“This case shows that a clear legal framework for the
protection of personal data is not a luxury or constraint, but a
fundamental right,” European Commissioner for Justice Viviane
Reding said.
The European Parliament said it is always firm on data protection
within the EU, as well as when negotiating with third countries,
including the US.
“It would be unacceptable and would need swift action from the
EU if indeed the US National Security Agency were processing
European data without permission,” Guy Verhofstadt of the
parliament’s liberal bloc said.
NSA’s tradition to survey international communities reportedly
goes back to the Cold War era, when the agency used monitoring
sites in Germany, Britain and other countries to spy on
communications within the Soviet Union and its East European
allies.
UK Foreign Secretary William Hague has meanwhile cancelled his
trip to Washington to speak about The Guardian’s latest NSA
report.
He assured parliament that accusations that the UK government
allegedly used information provided by the Americans to
circumvent laws were “baseless.”
“Our agencies practice and uphold UK law at all times,” he
stated, “even when dealing with information from outside the
UK.”
In an interview with the British newspaper, successful NSA
consultant Snowden leaked top-secret documents that revealed the
existence of the US National Security Agency’s extensive internet
spying program PRISM, which records digital communications and
allows for real-time online surveillance of US citizens. PRISM
gives US intelligence agencies direct access to files stored on
the servers of major internet companies, including Google and
Facebook, to identify and target potential terror suspects.
This article originally appeared on: RT