Snowden: European agencies collaborating on spying

The latest documents released from the cache of US whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that major European spy agencies are working together on mass surveillance. Snowden’s leaks reveal that German, French, Spanish, and Swedish intelligence agencies are working in close partnership with the British intelligence agency, the GCHQ, The Guardian reported on Friday. The documents show that these agencies have all developed methods of mass surveillance of internet and phone traffic over the past five years. The mass monitoring is conducted through direct taps into fiber optic cables and the development of covert relationships with telecommunications companies. Germany, France, and Spain have been some of the strongest critics of the US National Security Agency (NSA) for its spying on their citizens and leaders, which was also revealed by Snowden. Snowden, a former CIA employee, leaked two top secret US government spying programs under which the NSA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are eavesdropping on millions of American and European phone records and the Internet data from major Internet companies such as Facebook, Yahoo, Google, Apple, and Microsoft. The NSA scandal took even broader dimensions when Snowden revealed information about its espionage activities targeting friendly countries. Snowden said on Thursday the international community can persuade the US government to drop spying charges against him. "I am confident that with the support of the international community, the government of the United States will abandon this harmful behavior," he wrote in a letter to a German lawmaker whom Snowden met with in Moscow.