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NSA leaks prove US cold war mentality still prevails: Analyst

353845_Edward Snowden

Revelations by the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden on the massive US surveillance programs show that Washington still has the Cold War-era mentality, a political analyst says.

“…When this [revelations] all first came out, the first attempt of the United States government was to say: Oh, We all do this; they spy on us, we spy on them and that certainly was the Cold War mentality where you saw bugging of the embassies by the old East Bloc and the West…,” Norman Stockwell, a radio host and freelance journalist from Madison said in an interview with Press TV on Saturday.

Since last year, the former National Security Agency (NSA) employee, Edward Snowden, has leaked a cache of highly-sensitive documents about the United States’ global spying programs. He has given interviews on how the US government systematically monitors phone and internet data worldwide.

Snowden is currently in Russia, where he was granted temporary asylum in August 2013, two months after he leaked documents, showing the US spied on the European Union and monitored up to a half-billion German telephone calls and Internet activities each month.

Stockwell said Washington’s spying in Europe has led to the ‘erosion of trust’ between US and its allies that would undermine US ability to conduct everyday business in the region.

“…I think that the issue of the US spying is really an issue of the erosion of trust because what we have seen is the United States not only spying on governments that might be considered unfriendly but on governments that have been allies for decades,” he said.

The mass surveillance sparked global outrage and even Washington closest allies rebuked the program.

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