NSA Spying on EU: Report: Evidence of 2011 US cyberattack on EU defense giant EADS in Germany

"Bild am Sonntag" said on today Sunday July 12 that it inspected a "confidential letter" provided by Germany's foreign intelligence services - the BND - to the domestic intelligence agency - the Verfassungsschutz - outlining a "suspected" attack on European arms manufacturer European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) from American soil.

"From a foreign intelligence service, the BND received information about a suspected data tap at EADS Germany," the letter is reported to have said.

The German news outlet claimed that it was the first shred of evidence of a 2011 cyberattack on the French-German manufacturer, headquartered in Munich, since the onset of collaboration between the US National Security Agency (NSA) and the BND.

"Bild am Sonntag" reported that on November 2, 2011, hackers planted a spy program on the computers of EADS, during which 5,116 "connections" were said to have been found between the company's computers and the US-based "aggressors."

Germany's Protection of the Constitution committee informed EADS - now known as the Airbus Group - that their networks may have been compromised by the apparent attack, which had been initially traced to a server in Los Angeles.

Read more: Report: Evidence of 2011 US cyberattack on defense giant EADS in Germany | News | DW.COM | 12.07.2015

Personal Privacy: T-Mobile was asked to turn over more customer info to NSA than its larger rivals - by Roger Cheng

T-Mobile received nearly 351,940 government requests for data in 2014, the most out of any of the four national wireless carriers.

The nation's fourth-largest carrier by subscriber base disclosed in its transparency report on Wednesday that it had fielded 177,549 criminal and civil subpeonas, 17,316 warrants and more than 3,000 wiretap orders.

It marked the first time T-Mobile issued a transparency report, which have become increasingly popular over the past year as civil liberties groups, shareholder and consumer advocates have pressured companies to be more open about when they disclose customer information. T-Mobile was the last of the four national carriers to issue a report, which comes amid continued scrutiny of surveillance programs run by the US National Security Agency -- including the bulk collection of phone call data -- that were revealed when former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked classified government documents.

The requests kept T-Mobile busy last year -- the number of requests jumped nearly 11 percent from 2013.
 
Read more: T-Mobile was asked to turn over more customer info than its larger rivals - CNET

Privacy Rights: US Spy Scandal - N.S.A. Collection of Bulk Call Data Is Ruled Illegal - C.Savage and J.Weisman

NSA is never far away

A US federal appeals court in New York on Thursday ruled that the once-secret National Security Agency program that is systematically collecting Americans’ phone records in bulk is illegal.

The decision comes as a fight in Congress is intensifying over whether to end and replace the program, or to extend it without changes.

In a 97-page ruling, a three-judge panel for the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that a provision of the U.S.A. Patriot Act, known as Section 215, cannot be legitimately interpreted to allow the bulk collection of domestic calling records.

The provision of the act used to justify the bulk data program is to expire June 1, and the ruling is certain to increase tension that has been building in Congress.

It also comes as controversy over electronic surveillance is building in Europe, including a push in France to increase domestic spying and a decision by Germany to reduce cooperation on surveillance with the United States.

The ruling puts new pressure on Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, to make serious changes to the Patriot Act, which he has so far aggressively defended against any alteration, even as recently as Thursday on the Senate floor. Mr. McConnell has pressed to maintain the N.S.A.’s existing program against bipartisan efforts to scale it back, and has proposed simply extending the statute by the June 1 deadline.

Read more: N.S.A. Collection of Bulk Call Data Is Ruled Illegal - NYTimes.com

EU: Leave Facebook if you don't want to be spied on by US, warns EU - by Samuel Gibbs

The European Commission has warned EU citizens that they should close their Facebook accounts if they want to keep information private from US security services, finding that current Safe Harbour legislation does not protect citizen’s data.

The case, dubbed “the Facebook data privacy case”, concerns the current Safe Harbour framework, which covers the transmission of EU citizens’ data across the Atlantic to the US. Without the framework, it is against EU law to transmit private data outside of the EU. The case collects complaints lodged against Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Microsoft-owned Skype and Yahoo.

Schrems maintains that companies operating inside the EU should  not be allowed to transfer data to the US under Safe Harbour protections – which state that US data protection rules are adequate if information is passed by companies on a “self-certify” basis – because the US no longer qualifies for such a status.

The case argues that the US government’s Prism data collection program, revealed by Edward Snowden in the NSA files, which sees EU citizens’ data held by US companies passed on to US intelligence agencies, breaches the EU’s Data Protection Directive “adequacy” standard for privacy protection, meaning that the Safe Harbour framework no longer applies and does not protect citizen’s data.

The comments were made by EC attorney Bernhard Schima in a case brought by privacy campaigner Maximilian Schrems, looking at whether the data of EU citizens should be considered safe if sent to the US in a post-Snowden revelation landscape.

“You might consider closing your Facebook account, if you have one,” Schima told attorney general Yves Bot in a hearing of the case at the European court of justice in Luxembourg.

Read more: Leave Facebook if you don't want to be spied on, warns EU | Technology | The Guardian

EU-US Trade Talks And NSA Spying: Britain and Sweden block crucial espionage talks between US and Europe - by Ian Traynor

NSA surveillance scanda

The first talks to soothe transatlantic tensions to be restricted to data privacy and Prism program after Britain and Sweden's veto 

Britain has blocked the first crucial talks on intelligence and espionage between European officials and their American counterparts since the NSA surveillance scandal erupted.

The talks, due to begin in Washington on Monday, will now be restricted to issues of data privacy and the NSA's Prism programme following a tense 24 hours of negotiations in Brussels between national EU ambassadors. Britain, supported only by Sweden, vetoed plans to launch two "working groups" on the espionage debacle with the Americans.

Instead, the talks will consist of one working group focused on the NSA's Prism programme, which has been capturing and storing vast amounts of internet and mobile phone metadata in Europe.

The disclosures in the Guardian over the past month have triggered a transatlantic crisis of confidence and threatened to derail crucial free trade talks between the EU and the US, also due to be launched in Washington on Monday.

The talks on Prism and data privacy have been arranged to coincide with the trade talks in an attempt to defuse the transatlantic tension. EU diplomats and officials say the offer of talks by the Americans is designed to enable the leaders of Germany and France to save face following revelations about the scale of US espionage – particularly in Germany, but also of French and other European embassies and missions in the US.

Other aspects of the dispute, such as more traditional spying and intelligence matters, will be off limits for the Europeans after Britain insisted the EU had no authority to discuss issues of national security and intelligence.

"It was decided. It finished successfully," said Dalia Grybauskaitė, the president of Lithuania, which has just assumed the EU's six-month rotating presidency and which mediated the sensitive talks in Brussels over the past two days  

Note: Several members of the EU-Parliament have said in relation to the above that the EU-Commission is showing "no balls" when it comes to confronting the Americans about their spying activities on European Citizens. As one parliamentarian noted: "who needs enemies when you have friends like this".

Read more: NSA leaks: UK blocks crucial espionage talks between US and Europe | World news | The Guardian

Privacy Rights: The NSA spent years snooping on the world's wireless carriers - by Chris Velazco

The NSA's got its long, spindly proboscises slurping up sweet, sweet information from within governments and businesses the world over, so it shouldn't come as a surprise to hear that wireless carriers are targets, too. That's the thrust of a lengthy new report from The Intercept: The NSA is capable of snooping in on a vast majority of the world's cell phone service providers thanks to an initiative called AURORAGOLD, as revealed in key documents from Edward Snowden's archives.

Rad more: The NSA spent years snooping on the world's wireless carriers

NSA Spy Scandal: Europe's High Court Will Look at Facebook's Possible Role in NSA Spying - by Carol Matlack

Did Facebook (FB) illegally let the U.S. National Security Agency spy on its European users? That question is to be considered by the European Union’s highest court, after an Irish judge questioned whether data that the social network transferred from Europe to its U.S. servers might have fallen into the hands of the spy agency.

In a ruling today, Irish High Court Judge Gerard Hogan asked the European Court of Justice to decide whether Irish regulators should investigate the data transfers, which have been permitted under a transatlantic agreement that assumes U.S. privacy protections are comparable to those in the EU.

 Privacy advocates, led by an Austrian law student named Max Schrems, contend that Edward Snowden’s revelations about the NSA’s Prism program showed that the agency conducted “mass and largely unsupervised surveillance” of Facebook users’ data.

Schrems took Ireland’s national data regulator to court after it refused to consider his complaint and dismissed his arguments as “frivolous and vexatious.” But Judge Hogan said Snowden’s disclosures had “exposed gaping holes in contemporary U.S. data protection practice” that could undermine the U.S.-EU agreement.

He asked the European court to determine whether an investigation of Facebook’s data transfers was warranted in light of the disclosures. The case was filed in Ireland because Facebook’s European operations are headquartered there.

Read more: Europe's High Court Will Look at Facebook's Possible Role in NSA Spying - Businessweek

Wiretapping: Vodafone discloses direct government wiretaps into its network

Vodafone has become the first telecoms company to voluntarily reveal the scope of government snooping on mobile phone networks. It comes at a time when spy agencies face greater scrutiny for their surveillance practices.

One of the world's largest cellphone companies, Vodafone, has painted the clearest picture to date of the lengths governments go to snoop on he mobile phone communications of their citizens, saying authorities in some countries have direct wiretaps into its networks.

In the company's "Disclosure Report," released on Friday, Vodafone outlined the scope of government surveillance in 29 European, African and Asian countries

Most explicit was the disclosure that a "small number of countries" demand unfettered access to an operator's network without securing a arrant.

"It is a reminder that as chilling as the NSA's capabilities are, there are many countries around the world that are less restrained in the surveillance they conduct," said Julian Sanchez, a senior fellow and privacy expert at the Cato Institute in Washington D.C.

"In those countries, Vodafone will not receive any form of demand for lawful interception access as the relevant agencies and authorities already have permanent access to customer communications via their own direct link," the report said. 

Vodafone, which has 400 million customers worldwide, did not list the countries by name for legal reasons. But it did say it was prohibited by law to  disclose any information about wiretapping in Albania, Egypt, Hungary,  India, Malta, Qatar, Romania, South Africa and Turkey.

Read moreVodafone discloses direct government wiretaps into its network | Business | DW.DE | 06.06.2014

Government Spying: Snowden Says Technology Companies Should Lead on Data Encryption - by Adam Satariano

Edward Snowden, who leaked classified documents revealing the surveillance activities of the National Security Agency, said technology companies need to take a leadership role in improving encryption tools.

“There’s a technical response that needs to occur,” said Snowden, speaking through a video feed to a packed room of more than 3,000 people today at the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, Texas. Technology companies can add layers of security that make it harder for intelligence agencies to scour for data, and can do it faster than new surveillance-oversight laws can be implemented, he said.

Snowden is now a fugitive in Russia to avoid arrest following last year’s release of the documents, which disclosed how global spy agencies collect vast amounts of data about phone calls and online activities. The revelations frayed U.S. relationships with countries such as Brazil and Germany and set off a global debate about whether the government is overstepping its authority and violating privacy to bolster security.

The leaks from Snowden, a former NSA contractor, showed that the U.S. had been collecting phone records as well as data from companies such as Google Inc. (GOOG), Facebook Inc. and Apple Inc. The disclosures made Snowden a hero to some people who want to see government activities reined in, while others, including U.S. President Barack Obama, say his actions compromised efforts to combat terrorism.

Security and privacy have been main themes of South by Southwest this year. Known as the conference that helped catapult Twitter Inc. to popularity, the gathering typically focuses on the discovery of new social-networking companies. Instead, this year’s event has focused more on the drawbacks and consequences of sharing personal information online.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange spoke at the conference on March 8 and said the group would soon release a new trove of classified information. He didn’t disclose the timing or the topic of the material because he said he didn’t want to give the subjects a chance to prepare.

Other speakers, including Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, have discussed the impact of Snowden’s leaks. Schmidt said the material alerted his company to the fact the U.S. government was intercepting data from Google’s servers. Schmidt said the company has since enhanced its encryption and is “pretty sure” the government can’t access the data.

Still, he said the company must comply with court orders for information. Schmidt said there must be a balance between transparency and security, because the government data being disclosed could put lives at risk. Assange and Snowden’s release of classified information have made them “celebrities,” Schmidt said, and may spawn copycat efforts, increasing the risk for harm if the disclosures aren’t done carefully.

Read more: Snowden Says Technology Companies Should Lead on Data Encryption - Bloomberg

NSA created 'European bazaar' to spy on EU citizens, Snowden tells European Parliament - by Loek Essers

"Don't worry EU, we are your friend"

The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has turned the European Union into a tapping “bazaar” in order to spy on as many EU citizens as possible, NSA leaker Edward Snowden said.

The NSA has been working with national security agencies in EU member states to get access to as much data of EU citizens as possible, Snowden said in a testimony sent to Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) published Friday March 7.

The European Parliament had invited Snowden to provide testimony for an inquiry into the electronic mass surveillance of EU citizens. That surveillance, often instigated by the NSA but carried out with help of EU member states, is quite extensive, he wrote.

The NSA has been pressuring EU member states to change their laws to enable mass surveillance, according to Snowden. This is done through NSA’s Foreign Affairs Division (FAD), he said, adding that lawyers from the NSA and GCHQ work very hard “to search for loopholes in laws and constitutional protections that they can use to justify indiscriminate, dragnet surveillance operations that were at best unwittingly authorized by lawmakers,” he said.

The deals between the NSA and foreign partners are set up in such a way as to provide the NSA with a means of monitoring a partner’s citizens without informing the partner, and to provide the partner with a means of plausible deniability, he said.

“The result is a European bazaar, where an EU member state like Denmark may give the NSA access to a tapping center on the (unenforceable) condition that NSA doesn’t search it for Danes, and Germany may give the NSA access to another on the condition that it doesn't search for Germans. Yet the two tapping sites may be two points on the same cable, so the NSA simply captures the communications of the German citizens as they transit Denmark, and the Danish citizens as they transit Germany, all the while considering it entirely in accordance with their agreements,” Snowden said.

Snowden, who said that he’s still seeking asylum in the EU, also provided solutions to solve the mass surveillance problem.

It is easy to make mass surveillance more expensive through changes in technical standards, he said. “Pervasive, end-to-end encryption can quickly make indiscriminate surveillance impossible on a cost effective basis,” he said, adding that the result is that governments are likely to fall back to traditional, targeted surveillance founded upon an individualized suspicion.

The European Parliament is set to vote on a draft resolution on Wednesday March 12 that seeks to keep data protection out of EU-U.S. trade talks. The MEPs want the EU to suspend two deals with the U.S., one on exchanging banking data and the other on the Safe Harbor privacy principles for U.S. firms holding European data, as, they say, the fight against terrorism can never justify secret and illegal mass surveillance.

The MEPs will also vote on a proposal for stronger safeguards for data transfers to non-EU countries.

Wednesday’s vote could result in the updating of 19-year-old data-protection laws. Under MEPs’ amendments, companies breaking the rules would face fines of up to €100 million (about $139 million), or up to 5 percent of their annual worldwide turnover, whichever is greater, according to the Parliament

Read more: NSA created 'European bazaar' to spy on EU citizens, Snowden tells European Parliament | PCWorld

US Diplomacy At Work: Top U.S. Diplomat says to Europe: "Fuck The EU"

The United States’ top diplomat for European affairs appears to have been caught on tape saying “fuck the EU” in a leaked phone call with the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.

The Kyiv Post, an English-language newspaper in Ukraine, published the tape on Thursday. The recording’s veracity has not been independently verified.

The phone call appears to show Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland discussing the political situation in Ukraine with a man who sounds to be Ambassador Geoff Pyatt and weighing the merits of different opposition leaders.

A woman who sounds like Nuland says, “I don’t think it’s a good idea” for opposition leader Vitaly Klitschko to be given a role in the government. She appears to favor the idea of having Arseniy Yatseniuk, another opposition leader, as the new prime minister, saying he has “the economic experience, the governing experience.”

She then tells a man who sounds like Pyatt that the United Nations agreed to send someone to help “glue” the deal. “And you know, fuck the EU,” Nuland says. “Exactly,” Pyatt says.

“The EU is engaged in helping the people of Ukraine through the current political crisis. We don’t comment on alleged leaked telephone conversations,” Maja Kocijancic, a spokesperson for EU foreign policy chief Cathy Ashton, told BuzzFeed.

Note EU-Digest: as the saying goes "with friends like this who needs any enemies"

Read more: Top U.S. Diplomat For Europe: "Fuck The EU"

The Netherlands - NSA Spying: Home affairs minister Plasterk under fire over security service phone taps

Ronald Plasterkerk and the NSA

Dutch Home affairs minister Ronald Plasterk and defence minister Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert were summoned by the prime minister on Wednesday night to explain the confusion over exactly who gathered information on 1.8 million phone calls and text messages.

The ministers told parliament yesterday the Dutch, not the American, secret services were responsible for monitoring the phone calls, and that the information had then been shared with the US authorities.

Parliament is due to debate the latest information next week. Opposition MPs want to know if Plasterk deliberately misinformed parliament last year when he stated NSA was behind the information gathering.

Plasterk said: 'The details were collected in the interest of counter-terrorism activities and military operations abroad,’ the briefing stated. The information was then ‘shared with the US’.

Note EU-Digest: The question that needs to be asked in the Dutch Parliament is - "who requested the info in the first place and if it was the NSA why were Dutch citizen privacy rights breached and why was this information given so freely to this US spy agency ? "

Read more: DutchNews.nl - Home affairs minister under fire over security service phone taps

Data Privacy: EU justice chief accuses bloc of hypocrisy in data privacy debates

The EU needs to start protecting its own citizens from the American global spying initiatives and quit being “hypocritical” when it comes to reforming its own data protection system, said the EU’s Justice Commissioner.

Viviane Reding, a vocal critic of American cyber surveillance, lashed out against EU member states’ reaction in wake of Edward Snowden revelations, urging the bloc to protect citizens’ private information and seek more legal assurances from Washington.

“There's been a lot of hypocrisy in the debate,” Reding said at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels on Tuesday. “If the EU wants to be credible in its efforts to rebuild trust, if it wants to act as an example for other continents, it also has to get its own house in order.”

“The EU itself should also look carefully at some of its [data protection] laws. Neither the Commission, the Council, nor the European Parliament can be proud of the Data Retention Directive.”

The Directive requires telecom companies to store all telephony metadata, including geo-location data. Criticizing some aspects of the Directive, Reding said that the data “is kept for too long, it is too easily accessed and the risk of abuse is too great.”

Almere Digest   

EU-US Trade Negotiations: French senators strongly attack trade deal - What about Dutch Parliament? Asleep?

During a debate in the French Senate, all political parties harshly criticized the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), but the French government defended the potential deal, EurActiv France reports.

The minister in charge of foreign trade, Nicole Bricq, admit with regret that France was the country where the mobilisation against what they call the 'transatlantic treaty', is the strongest.

A debate, which took place in the Senate on Thursday (9 January), showed bipartisan opposition to the agreement and the government found itself somewhat isolated on the topic after facing criticism from
speakers from all political sides.

he former French interior minister, Jean-Pierre Chevènement, reminded that the idea for a partnership was first and foremost an American idea, as the US wished to rebalance the trade surplus that the EU had with the country and bring back jobs to their continent.

“The companies’ interests are not always those of the states," warned  a politician, who considers that the currency issue should have been settled before signing a trade agreement.

“We should have put in place a transatlantic snake in the tunnel in order to establish, softly, a real parity between the euro and the dollar. We cannot talk about free trade when the parity between euro and
dollar go from one to two in ten years only.”

In his opinion, this aspect should be included in the negotiations, but the minister Bricq replied it was not on the agenda.

André Gattolin, a Green MP, also strongly opposed the partnership project, said that Europe had its own identity and should preserve it.  He also put forward the impact it would have on inequality in different European countries.

“We are promised 0.5% growth but only some zones will take advantage of it like the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp,” the MP went on to say.

“As it is, this project is bad and we saw with the NSA scandal that the dice are loaded,” he added.

Jean Bizet from the centre-right opposition, UMP, expressed concern about the food and agriculture aspects of the deal and notably the milk file, as cheese imports increase in France and milk producing regions grow anxious at the end of milk quotas in 2015.

The sharpest remark came from a member of the government's socialist majority, Marie-Noëlle Lienemann.

“I am very hostile to this treaty,” she said. “We are forced to note that happy globalisation did not happen! … multinational companies are in a situation that we cannot regulate,” she added.

The MP was sceptical about the growth perspectives, too. She added that the promised growth points could be reached with a recovery policy supported by large-scale work projects.

Read more: French senators strongly attack EU-US trade deal | EurActiv

Leaving the EU will mean economic disaster for UK or for that matter any other EU member copy-cats - by RM

Whatever your views are about the EU, the first thing that happens when your local political establishment decides through a referendum or other manipulation to get out of the Union, is economic disaster.

In the case of Britain getting out of the EU big companies and financial conglomerates will decamp from London to Frankfurt or Paris. The pound will immediately  fall.. Many of the British exporters have no idea what's going to happen to them, and the banks will not be keen to stick out their neck in their favor.

In general if Britain leaves the EU it would become an economic storm so big it could overshadow anything else the British public would have ever experienced.

In connection with the above, just imagine how any member country which steps out of the EU could handle the NSA spying revelations on European countries and their leaders if they had to do this just by themselves? 

Unfortunately in the case of Britain and the NSA the question which obviously arises and which has not been addressed by the EU Parliament or the Commission is how Britain, a member of the EU, has (is) participating and supporting the NSA spy program on Europeans, without the EU Commission/Parliament or the EU member states having any knowledge of it?

With friends like this who needs any enemies? 

Almere-Digest

The Netherlands-Privacy Rights Violations:US taps 1.8 million Dutch phone numbers-very few taps related to terrorism

DutchNews NL reports that the American National Security Agency tapped 1.8 million Dutch telephones in one month alone as part of its "Boundless Informant Surveillance Program"..

The raw information was first published by Der Spiegel in June but has now been interpreted by Dutch technology website Tweakers following publication in Le Monde.

Between the beginning of December and beginning of January, 1.8 million Dutch phone numbers were tapped into by the NSA, recording information about number and possibly location, Tweakers said.

The numbers were compared against a database of suspect numbers and, Tweakers says, if a number was on the list, calls to and from the number were listened in to.

In Germany, 500 million numbers were picked up by the NSA and in France 70 million. Paris has now summoned the US ambassador to explain events. According to Le Monde, documents show the NSA was allegedly targeting not only terrorist suspects but politicians, business people and others.

The raw information comes from whistleblower Edward Snowden. VVD parliamentarian Klaas Dijkhoff said the news that the US is obtaining telephone information in the Netherlands on such a broad scale is ‘disappointing’.

'If it was the Chinese or the Russians, then no-one would be surprised,’ he is quoted as saying by Tweakers ‘But this is an ally and that makes it extra disappointing.’

The Netherlands is already the most heavily phone-tapped country in the world. The number of phone taps rose 3% to nearly 25,500 last year, according to justice ministry figures. And the number of requests for information about phone calls - such as the location calls were made from - reached almost 57,000, up 10% on 2011.

The above  figures do not include taps by the Dutch security services.

The question the EU Commission and Parliament should pose, and so far have not ; "why would the EU want to negotiate a comprehensive and  far reaching trade agreement with the US when they can't be trusted and as a matter of fact even have been caught bugging offices of the EU in Bruxelles and  the US ?"

The Finance Tracking Program (TFTP) of 2010 agreed on by the EU and US, which supplies bank and credit card transaction information to the U.S. treasury in an apparent effort to trace funding to terrorist groups, should probably also be scrapped now it has became evident the Americans have been abusing the agreement. 

Almere-Digest

Netherlands: "The Dutch ‘have no idea’ about the scale of the US espionage activities in the Netherlands" says Glenn Greenwald

American journalist Glenn Greenwald, who helped publish reports on the US’s internet-based spying program, says the Dutch ‘have no idea’ about the scale of the US espionage activities in the Netherlands.

In an interview with the Volkskrant, Greenwald says the revelations about the situation in the Netherlands will be published soon.

‘I have a lot of information about the Netherlands but I cannot go into it yet,’ Greenwald said. 'The tone of debate in the Netherlands may well change when the revelations are published.'

Dutch reaction to the revelations has been fairly muted so far, the paper points out. In mid-September the government published its official reaction, stating that the US has now promised the EU to inform it about its spy programmes and welcoming US discussions about improving transparency.

This, the paper states, is in sharp contrast to the justice ministry’s recent report on cyber security which stated digital spying by foreign states poses a serious threat.

Read more in Volskrant