The furore over America’s international spying web escalated today with claims that its National Security Agency monitored 60 million phone calls in Spain in a single month.
The NSA spied on the calls between December 10 last year and January 8 this year, according to a report in Spanish daily El Mundo.
It kept details of the caller, location and recipient of the calls, but not their content, according to the story based on a document provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
The allegations follow similar claims that America spied on tens of thousands of phone calls in France, and a report by German magazine Der Spiegel saying a document showed Washington had tapped Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile.
Spain’s government has said it is not aware of its citizens being spied on by the NSA. Madrid has also resisted calls from Germany for the European Union’s 28 member states to reach a “no-spy deal” with America.
A Spanish minister and the US ambassador to Spain were due to meet today, after Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said the country was looking for more information about America’s alleged spying network.
But he has signalled he is not convinced by the case for an EU-wide anti-espionage agreement with Washington. He said: “These aren’t decisions which correspond to the European Union but questions related to national security and the exclusive responsibility of member states.
“France and Germany have decided to do one thing and the rest of us may decide to do the same, or something else.”
El Mundo said it had reached a deal with Glenn Greenwald, the Brazil-based journalist who has worked with The Guardian and other media in relation to information provided to him by Mr Snowden, to get access to documents relating to Spain.
Mr Snowden is currently living in Russia, out of the reach of US attempts to have him arrested. In Britain, senior ministers and security chiefs have claimed that the Snowden revelations have damaged the international fight against terrorism.
Ms Merkel is sending Germany’s most senior intelligence chiefs to Washington to investigate the spying claims.
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A European Union parliamentary delegation from its Civil Liberties Committee is also set to hold a series of meetings in Washington amid reports that the NSA monitored the phones of 35 world leaders.
In addition, a Japanese news agency reported that the US spy agency asked the country’s government two years ago to help it monitor fibre-optic cables transporting personal data through Japan, to the Asia-Pacific region.
Kyodo news agency reported that the proposed operation was part of America’s spying on China, but that Japan declined to get involved, highlighting legal restrictions and staff shortages.
