EU confronting US over surveillance
European Union lawmakers are in Washington to confront U.S. officials about allegations of widespread American spying on its allies.
The 23-member European Parliament delegation began a series of meetings Monday with U.S. lawmakers and officials in several government agencies, including the National Security Council at the White House. The talks are scheduled to extend through Wednesday.
In recent days, European leaders have denounced reports of National Security Agency spying on allies, including monitoring of the cell phone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. In the latest outcry, Spain denounced the snooping as “inappropriate and unacceptable.”
The Spanish foreign ministry summoned U.S. Ambassador James Costos for a 45-minute meeting in Madrid within hours of reports in two Spanish newspapers that the U.S. tracked more than 60 million Spanish phone calls in a single month.
El Mundo and El Pais reported that the NSA monitored the calls last December 10 through January 8 this year. The reports said the U.S. collected the numbers of the calls and their duration, but not their content.
Source: VOANews.com
(Photo: wyrls)
