Germany - Privacy Rights Violations: Angela Merkel calls US president Barack Obama over phone tapping claims

Mrs Merkel called president Barack Obama to personally complain about the possible intrusion.

Her spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said she made it clear in her call that ‘she views such practices, if if proven true, as completely unacceptable and condemns them unequivocally.’

White House spokesman Jay Carney said that the president had assured the chancellor that the US ‘is not monitoring and will not monitor’ her communications.

An official declined to comment when asked whether spying may have occurred in the past, saying: ‘I’m not in a position to comment publicly on every specific alleged intelligence activity.’

In a statement Berlin called for ‘an immediate and comprehensive explanation’ of what ‘would be a serious breach of trust’.

News magazine Der Spiegel, which has published material from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, said its research triggered the response.

Similar spying concerns have been raised by France and other US allies.

Read more: Angela Merkel calls US president Barack Obama over phone tapping claims | Metro News

Which Citizens Are Under More Surveillance, U.S. Or European? - by Tom Gjelten

The disclosure of of previously secret NSA surveillance programs has been met by outrage in Europe. The European Parliament even threatened to delay trade talks with the United States.

Yet U.S. officials have dismissed much of the complaining as hypocrisy. Before the that would have limited the data the NSA can collect last week, U.S. intelligence officials argued that regulation of government surveillance programs is actually tighter in the United States than in many other countries.

Stewart Baker, formerly the NSA's general counsel, told the House Judiciary Committee this month that Europeans are more likely to be spied on by their governments than Americans are by theirs. And he had data to back that up.

"According to the Max Planck Institute, you're 100 times more likely to be surveilled by your own government if you live in the Netherlands or you live in Italy," Baker said. "You're 30 to 50 times more likely to be surveilled if you're a French or a German national than in the United States."

Those numbers are generally accurate, says Joris van Hoboken of the Institute for Information Law at the University of Amsterdam. But he points out that many of the surveillance orders are issued by police departments, not by intelligence agencies like the NSA. He cites his own country.

"It's quite known that law enforcement in the Netherlands uses wiretapping to a great extent, and that has to do with a certain tradition in the Netherlands of using that instrument," he says, as opposed to using, for example, undercover agents.

But U.S. officials also argue that the legal restrictions on surveillance are tighter here. Christopher Wolf, a lawyer specializing in privacy, recently co-wrote a study comparing the extent to which spy investigations have to get outside approval, in the United States and in Europe.

Read more: Which Citizens Are Under More Surveillance, U.S. Or European? : NPR

EUobserver: Eurojust supports wire-tapping of Skype conversations - by Valentina Pop

For the complete report from EUobserver click on this link

Eurojust supports wire-tapping of Skype conversations - by Valentina Pop

EU's judicial cooperation agency Eurojust will take the lead in finding ways to help police and prosecutors across Europe to wiretap computer-to-computer phone conversations enabled by programs such as Skype. "We will sit together with all member states to see how this can be done technically and legally," Joannes Thuy, Eurojust spokesman told this website. Mr Thuy stressed that the wiretapping would not affect "normal users", but would have to be carried out only as part of a criminal investigation. Eurojust's talks with prosecutors and police officials from member states, as well as legal experts would be led by Italian prosecutor Carmen Manfreda. "There are 30 different legal systems all across the EU, so we expect the talks to take several months before first results are presented," Mr Thuy added. Skype, an Danish-Swedish business developed by Estonian programmers that was sold to E-Bay in 2005 and has over 350 million customers worldwide, is said to be un-spyable by intelligence services.

In its press release, Eurojust says that "Skype has so far refused to share its encryption system with national authorities." However, Skype claims that it has "extensively debriefed Eurojust on our law enforcement program and capabilities."

"Skype says it cooperates with law enforcement where legally and technically possible. Note EU-Digest: Based on EU privacy laws this seems very controversial and should not be approved.