Spain demands details of US eavesdropping

Spain demands details of US eavesdropping: Spain on Monday met US Ambassador James Costos, summoned to explain the latest revelations in a growing scandal over the US snooping on telephone and online communications of ordinary citizens and world leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The news emerged as a European Parliament delegation was to begin a three-day mission to Washington to probe the impact of the surveillance on EU citizens’ “fundamental rights” and discuss suspending an EU-US agreement on the transfer of bank data in the wake of the scandal.

Spanish foreign ministry officials met Costos hours after daily newspaper El Mundo published a classified document apparently showing that US security services tracked 60.5 million Spanish telephone calls in a single month.

The systematic trawling of huge volumes of digital information — or metadata — would include intercepting personal details through internet web browsers, emails, and social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, the newspaper said.

Spain’s foreign ministry said it has underscored to the US ambassador its concern.

“Spain conveyed to the United States the importance of preserving the climate of trust that governs bilateral relations and of knowing the scale of practices that, if true, are inappropriate and unacceptable between countries that are partners and friends,” it said in a statement.