| Story Views | |
| Now: | |
| Last Hour: | |
| Last 24 Hours: | |
| Total: | |
Revealed: NSA Secretly Monitored Tens Of Millions Of Phone Calls In France And Hacked Into Former Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s Email Account
![An image grab taken from a video released by Wikileaks on Oct. 12, 2013 shows US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden speaking during a dinner with US ex-intelligence workers and activists in Moscow on Oct. 9, 2013. [AFP]](http://www.rawstory.com/rs/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/An-image-grab-taken-from-a-video-released-by-Wikileaks-on-Oct.-12-2013-shows-US-intelligence-leaker-Edward-Snowden-speaking-during-a-dinner-with-US-ex-intelligence-workers-and-activists-in-Moscow-on-Oct.-9-2013.-AFP.jpg)
Raw Story
France and Mexico have angrily demanded prompt explanations from the United States following “shocking” new spying allegations leaked by former US security contractor Edward Snowden.
The reports published in French daily Le Monde and German weekly Der Spiegel reveal that the US National Security Agency secretly monitored tens of millions of phone calls in France and hacked into former Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s email account.
They come on top of revelations also leaked by Snowden and published in June that the US had a vast, secret programme called PRISM to monitor Internet users.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, on a trip to Luxembourg for a meeting with his EU counterparts, said the US ambassador had “immediately” been summoned to his ministry for a meeting Monday morning.
“These kinds of practices between partners that harm privacy are totally unacceptable. We have to rapidly make sure that they are no longer implemented in any circumstance,” he told reporters.
French Interior Minister Manuel Valls, meanwhile, described the revelations as “shocking”, in an interview with Europe 1 radio.
The spy agency monitored 70.3 million phone calls in France over a 30-day period between December 10 and January 8 this year, Le Monde reported in its online version, citing documents from Snowden.
According to the paper, the NSA automatically picked up communications from certain phone numbers in France and recorded certain text messages under a programme code-named “US-985D.”
Le Monde said the documents gave grounds to believe that the NSA targeted not only people suspected of being involved in terrorism but also high-profile individuals from the world of business or politics.
Valls said France would demand “precise explanations by US authorities in the coming hours.”
