EU demands answers from US after reports of bugging

The European Union on Sunday said it had contacted US authorities to demand an explanation after German media reports alleging that the US National Security Agency (NSA) had bugged EU offices in Washington and New York.

“We have immediately been in contact with the US authorities in Washington, DC, and in Brussels,” European Commission spokeswoman Marlene Holzner said. “They have told us they are checking on the accuracy of the information released yesterday and will come back to us.”

The EU’s ambassador in Washington, Joao Vale de Almeida, wrote on Twitter that he had “confronted US gov with press reports on access to EU comm systems. Have been promised info & eagerly wait it. We need clarification.” German magazine Spiegel cited a classified document leaked by fugitive NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The September 2010 document said the US agency was then able to listen to conversations and read emails and other documents from the offices.

The NSA, which is focused on electronic intelligence, allegedly also conducted a wiretapping operation of the EU in Brussels for more than five years, Spiegel reported.

It pointed to a series of failed phone calls during more than five years that allegedly stemmed from a telemaintenance site in the Justus Lipsius building, which is home to the EU Council of Ministers. The calls were traced to the NATO headquarters in the suburb of Evere, where NSA experts were working.

Ben Rhodes, deputy national security advisor to US President Barack Obama, told broadcaster CNN on Sunday that he had no comment on the report and said that any such comment would have to come directly from the NSA. He noted that the US has close intelligence contacts with Europe.

European Parliament President Martin Schulz told Spiegel after it released the report that “if it’s true, then it will be a big blow to the relations between the EU and the USA.” France joined calls for the United States to provide answers about allegations that the US spied on EU offices in Washington and New York.

“France today demanded explanations from US authorities about the information revealed by German weekly Der Spiegel, according to which the National Security Agency spied on European Union institutions,” Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said in a statement.

“These actions, if they were confirmed, would be completely unacceptable,” he said.

French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira told BFM TV that, if confirmed, the spying would constitute “an act of unspeakable hostility.” Snowden, who provided the information on which Spiegel based its report, remains in legal limbo at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport. The US has cancelled his passport and is demanding he be sent back to America to face espionage charges for leaking details of NSA surveillance programmes.

Snowden has applied to Ecuador for asylum, after fleeing to Russia from Hong Kong. Ecuadorean and Russian officials have engaged in talks about Snowden’s status, with Ecuador saying it could not process Snowden’s request until he was on Ecuadorean soil.

British’s Guardian newspaper on Saturday reported then retracted a story citing former US intelligence officer Wayne Madsen, now a free-lance journalist, as saying several European countries had actively forwarded communications data to the NSA.

The Guardian pulled the story after saying an investigation was necessary, but not before some editions of its sister publication, the Observer, went to print.

British and US media have characterised Madsen as a person prone to conspiracy theories.

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