US spy agency 'taped millions of French calls'

LATEST: France said on Monday it would "immediately" summon the US ambassador in Paris to respond to the "shocking" claims in Le Monde newspaper on Monday that the US NSA spy agency secretly recorded millions of phone calls made in France. Le Monde cited documents from whistleblower Edward Snowden.

France's foreign minister announced on Monday the "immediate" summoning of the US ambassador over a report that American spies eavesdropped on millions of calls made by French citizens.

"I have immediately summoned the US ambassador," Laurent Fabius told reporters as he arrived for an EU foreign ministers meeting, adding a meeting would take place "this morning" at the ministry in Paris.

In its online version on Monday Le Monde claimed the NSA spy agency taped 70.3 million phone calls in France over a 30-day period between December 10th and January 8th, 2013,

According to the newspaper NSA used various methods to track and collect the phonecalls.

The NSA automatically picked up communications from certain phone numbers in France, which were then recorded. The same system picked up and recorded text messages, based on certain key words that appeared. The NSA would also systematically record the communication history of each of their targets under a programme code-named "US-985D."

The techniques used to intercept communications appeared under the codes "DRTBOX" and "WHITEBOX". On average NSA were intercepting three million calls each day over the one month period, which at times rose to 7 million.

Le Monde said the documents gave grounds to think the NSA targeted not only people suspected of being involved in terrorism but also high-profile individuals from the world of business or politics.

http://www.thelocal.fr/20131021/us-snooped-on-70-million-phone-calls-in-france