EU calls on UK to give urgent answers to spying revelations
The UK government’s spying scandal is causing concerns among Europeans with the EU chief justice writing to British authorities demanding urgent answers. - The EU's Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding has written to Foreign Secretary William Hague demanding answers by the end of the week on leaked reports that Britain's spy services are tapping cables that carry the world's phone calls and Internet traffic. "I have sent a letter to express my concern," Reding told a briefing on Wednesday, adding: "I have asked for a very urgent reply by the end of this week." The EU chief justice demanded answers about the scope and extent of the online eavesdropping program and called for clear answers about the alleged details published in British papers this week. The revelations, published by The Guardian newspaper, are based on leaked documents from U.S. former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who has been accused by the White House of espionage. The report on the British programme codenamed Tempora has sparked a fresh outcry from privacy campaigners. Reding said she had asked Hague to “clarify the extent of the programme, whether the data stayed in Britain or was passed to other countries, whether the spying was limited to individual cases and what the possibilities for legal redress were”.
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