The world leaders seem to be quite upset over NSA spying, as after Germany, it now seems to be the turn of Spain to summon the US Ambassador for explanations to NSA spying.
And all this continues to happen even after the Wall Street Journal reported that President Obama did not have any knowledge during the last five years, of the NSA bugging the phones of world leaders, including that of Chancellor Merkel of Germany.
German newspaper Bild am Sonntag, however, quoted an anonymous source from the NSA and claimed that President Obama had received detailed NSA briefings of US spies monitoring the German Chancellor’s mobile phones, even in 2010.
German weekly Der Spiegel went so far ahead as to claim that the NSA may have been bugging Merkel’s phone as early as of 2002 – which claim obviously removes Obama from the picture.
However, the NSA has categorically denied that the President had ever discussed such operations involving Chancellor Merkel.
Anyway, it seems officially the program of bugging the world leaders has ended, and again the world is back to the relieved position of nobody knowing anything of it.
But Spain, apparently, is determined to play spoilsport, and backed by a monarchy, in contrast to the state of Germany, Spain now wants its say. Given that the country is in a very bad economic shape, we might like to see how this encounter shapes up, and whether Spain is able to get any leverage out of the situation.
On Monday, two Spanish newspapers, El Mundo and El Pais, reported that NSA had monitored the calls of Spanish leaders from December 2012 to January 2013. The reports claimed the NSA surveillance included monitoring of social networks, email, and internet browsers.