Snowden: US pressed EU to create spy networks

American Whistleblower Edward Snowden says the United States pressures its allies to allow widespread spying in Europe.

Answering questions before the European Parliament on Friday, Snowden said the National Security Agency presses European Union states to change their laws to enable mass surveillance.
“One of the foremost activities of the NSA’s FAD, or Foreign Affairs Division, is to pressure or incentivize EU member states to change their laws to enable mass surveillance,” Snowden said in a testimony delivered remotely from Russia.
“Lawyers from the NSA, as well as the UK’s 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 added.
The former NSA contractor said the effort “to interpret new powers out of vague laws is an intentional strategy to avoid public opposition and lawmakers’ insistence that legal limits be respected.”
Snowden, who is now living under temporary asylum in Russia, said he repeatedly tried to go through official channels to raise concerns about Washington’s spying operations but he said his warnings fell on deaf ears.
Since last year, Snowden has leaked a cache of highly-sensitive documents about the United States’ spying programs. He has given interviews on how the US government systematically monitors phone and internet data worldwide.
The whistleblower is now wanted in the United States on espionage charges. His revelations deeply embarrassed the administration of President Barack Obama, forcing him to announce in January that the US government was banning eavesdropping on the leaders of close allies.