France summons US envoy over reports Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama spied on them, revelations by Snowden follow report Obama had former Mexican Pres. Calderon email hacked-BBC

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10/21/13, "Snowden leaks: France summons US envoy over spying claims," BBC

"French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has summoned the US ambassador

over newspaper claims that the US spied on millions of phone calls in France.

France has labelled such activity between allies as "unacceptable".

Le Monde says the data, based on leaks from ex-intelligence analyst Edward Snowden, suggest the US NSA agency monitored businesses and officials as well as terrorism suspects.

The intercepts were apparently triggered by certain key words.

The paper says the National Security Agency (NSA) spied on 70.3 million phone calls in France in just 30 days between December 10 last year and January 8, 2013....

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"Snowden leaks timeline

• 5 June: First leak published in the Guardian saying the NSA is collecting the telephone records of millions of Americans
• 6 June: Details of the Prism programme published by Guardian and Washington Post
• 9 June: Guardian identifies Edward Snowden as source of the leaks, at his own request
• 14 June: US files criminal charges against Mr Snowden
• 23 June: Mr Snowden leaves Hong Kong for Moscow
• 12 July: Mr Snowden gives news conference saying he is seeking asylum in Russia
• 1 August: Mr Snowden leaves airport after being awarded Russian asylum"...

"The agency also apparently captured millions of text messages.

It was unclear whether the content of the calls and messages was stored, or just the metadata - the details of who is speaking to whom.

And the paper did not say whether the operation, codenamed US-985D, was still in progress.

Mr Fabius announced that he had summoned the US ambassador to discuss the claims "immediately".

Interior Minister Manuel Valls had earlier said the allegations were "shocking", and added: "If an allied country spies on France, this is totally unacceptable."

Le Monde reported in July that the French government ran a huge snooping operation on its own citizens, giving its intelligence agencies access to vast amounts of personal data.

The latest revelations follow claims in the German media that US agents hacked into the email account of former Mexican President Felipe Calderon. 

Edward Snowden, a former NSA worker, went public with revelations about US spying operations in June.

The information he leaked led to claims of systematic spying by the NSA and CIA on a global scale.
Targets included rivals like China and Russia, as well as allies like the EU and Brazil.

The NSA was also forced to admit it captured email and phone data from millions of Americans.
Mr Snowden is currently in Russia, where he was granted a year-long visa after making an asylum application.

The US wants him extradited to face trial on criminal charges."


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