India on Wednesday lodged an official complaint with the United States of America (USA) over reports of authorisation provided by a US court to the American National Security Agency (NSA) for snooping on the Indian Government and Bharatiya Janata Party leaders in 2010.
A top US diplomat was summoned in the morning and asked to respond in detail about the present news on authorisation sought from a US court to snoop on the Indian Government, its top political party and other entities. India has also sought an assurance from the Barack Obama administration that such an authorization, if sought, will not be used on Indian entities or the Government.
“The Government has noted reports in the US media regarding the authorisation given to entities of the US Government to intrude upon the privacy of communications of the Indian Government, its citizens, and Indian entities. If such intrusions have indeed been “authorised” and have taken place, it is highly objectionable. As in the past one year, in response to similar disclosures of surveillance of Indian Government entities, our concerns have been clearly expressed at senior official levels to the US Government. In doing so, India has sought an explanation on the information contained in the Press reports, and an assurance that such authorizations will not be acted upon by US Government entities, as far as Indian citizens, entities and the Government of India is concerned,” said External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin.
Sources said India also stressed that it was still awaiting a response from America on concerns raised with the US Government in July and November last year when reports of snooping on individuals and entities had first emerged. According to officials, the US diplomat said that the embassy is working on the information they have to share with India. The US Embassy at present has an interim Ambassador Kathleen Stephens who came in after former US Ambassador Nancy Powell resigned from her post.
“They said they will revert to us. We too did not expect a response immediately. We will await a response. India and USA have multi-faceted relations. There are areas on which we work together and communicate with each other. Our relationship is broad-based,” said Akbaruddin.
India is listed at number 78 in the list given by the NSA under the title: “Foreign Governments or any components thereof, whether or not recognised by the US.”
The BJP is listed under the title “Foreign-Based Political Organisations, not substantially composed of United States persons”. Besides BJP, there are five other political parties is the list: lebanese political party Amal, Bolivarian Continental Coordination, Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, National Salvation Front (Egypt) and Pakistan’s Peoples Party. NSA sought permission to conduct surveillance for the purpose of gathering foreign Intelligence. Each year a new certification has to be approved by the American court for surveillance on entities of “valid interest” to the US.
US President Obama has been defending his Government’s surveillance programs claiming they are meant for serving national security rather than commercial interests.
The Indian Government is already working on a National Email Policy to protect its E-content to protect electronic correspondence within the Government against any outside snooping and espionage. This policy will make it mandatory for Indian Embassies abroad to use National Informatics Centre servers installed in the embassies which are directly linked to a server in India. These cannot be accessed by other nations.