THE American security services monitored the telephone conversations of 35 world leaders after obtaining their numbers from an official in another government department, a leaked document has claimed.
Edward Snowden, the fugitive former US intelligence operator, has leaked what is claimed to be a confidential memo showing the US National Security Agency (NSA) encouraged senior officials in departments such as the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon to provide access to their "Rolodexes" containing phone numbers of leading foreign politicians.
One US official alone was said to have passed on 200 numbers, including those of the 35 world leaders, none of whom is named, who were immediately "tasked" for monitoring by the NSA.
The disclosure will heighten the tensions between the US and key European allies, after the German chancellor Angela Merkel challenged President Barack Obama over claims the Americans tapped her mobile phone.
French president Francois Hollande had earlier called Mr Obama to confront him over claims that the NSA was targeting the private phone calls and texts of millions of French people.
In a carefully worded statement, the White House said the US "is not monitoring and will not monitor" Mrs Merkel's commun-ications but officials in Berlin pointed out that it did not deny monitoring the phone in the past.
The latest NSA memo obtained by a newspaper, dated October 2006, was issued to staff in the agency's Signals Intelligence Directorate (SID) and describes how US officials who mixed with world leaders and politicians could help agency surveillance.
"In one recent case a US official provided NSA with 200 phone numbers to 35 world leaders," it notes. "Despite the fact that the majority is probably available via open source, the PCs [intelligence production centres] have noted 43 previously unknown phone numbers. These numbers plus several others have been tasked."
The document also describes how the numbers provided the NSA leads to further telephone numbers which were also "tasked", but admits that the surveillance had produced "little reportable intelligence".
The memo then asks experts to consider any customers who may be interested in giving over details of their contacts.
It adds that the success of the operation had led the intelligence officers to wonder if there are more "NSA liaisons" whose "supported customers" may consider handing over "Rolodexes" or phone lists with NSA as potential sources of intelligence. It added that such information would be welcomed.
It goes on to suggest that such offers come unsolicited, with US customers sometimes spontaneously offering up their overseas networks to the agency.
Earlier, it was reported that the US had denied ever spying on Prime Minister David Cameron.
Caitlin Hayden, a spokesman for the National Security Council said: "We do not monitor PM Cameron's communications."
Asked if the US had ever spied on Mr Cameron in the past, she replied: "No."
Mr Cameron's spokesman refused to comment, saying: "I'm not going to comment on matters of security or intelligence."
Britain, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are members of the so-called Five Eyes group, who share signals intelligence and are supposed not to spy on each other.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article