Following the furore in France over US National Security Agency’s extensive snooping of telephone calls of French citizens, President Barack Obama has sought to assure his French counterpart Francois Hollande that the ongoing review on intelligence gathering will address privacy concerns of allies.
“The President made clear that the United States has begun to review the way that we gather intelligence, so that we properly balance the legitimate security concerns of our citizens and allies with the privacy concerns that all people share,” the White House said after Obama’s telephone conversation with Hollande on the issue on Monday.
Much to the embarrassment of Washington, the revelations by le Monde, based on documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden, came on a day when Secretary of State John Kerry was in Paris and the French government summoned US Ambassador Charles Rikvin to make it clear that this type of spying by America on one of its closest allies was “totally unacceptable”.
Within a space of just one month (from December 10, 2012 to January 7, 2013), the NSA swept up more than 70 million French phone records, it was revealed. The French protest is just the latest in a series of embarrassments faced by the US. last month, Brazil’s President called off Obama’s invitation for a state visit to Washington following revelations that NSA had spied on her personal communications. Germany and Mexico have also been angered, while India has raised concerns on this score with the US in a rather muted fashion.
The White House statement after Obama’s talk with Hollande claimed that some of the recent disclosures in the press “have distorted our activities”, while “some of which raise legitimate questions for our friends and allies about how these capabilities are employed”. The two Presidents agreed to “continue to discuss these issues in diplomatic channels”.
Earlier, French Foreign Minister laurent Fabius, speaking to reporters in luxembourg, put it bluntly, “These kinds of practices between partners, that violate privacy, are totally unacceptable. We must assure that these practices aren’t repeated.” Kerry, who arrived in Paris on Monday, called France “one of our oldest allies in the world”.