Spain working for NSA ( Archived) (18)

Spain colluded in NSA spying on its citizens, Spanish newspaper reports

El Mundo says it has obtained document detailing collaboration between US intelligence agency and foreign countries

The widespread surveillance of Spanish citizens by the US National Security Agency, which caused outrage when it was reported this week, was the product of a collaboration with Spain's intelligence services, according to one Spanish newspaper.

In the latest revelations to emerge from the documents leaked by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden, Spanish agents not only knew about the work of the NSA but also facilitated it, El Mundo reports.

An NSA document entitled "Sharing computer network operations cryptologic information with foreign partners" reportedly shows how the US relies on the collaboration of many countries to give it access to intelligence information, including electronic metadata.

The US classifies co-operation with various countries on four different levels. In the first group are allies: the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. The second group, of which Spain is a member, includes 19 countries, all of them European apart from Japan and South Korea.

The reports come a day after the director of the NSA, General Keith B Alexander, testified before the US house intelligence committee that suggestions the agency monitored millions of calls in Spain, France and Italy were "completely false" and that this data had been at least partially collected by the intelligence services of those countries and then passed on to the NSA.

On Monday, El Mundo reported that the NSA had intercepted 60.5m phone calls in Spain over one month alone.

Alexander said foreign intelligence services collected phone records in war zones and other areas outside their borders and passed these on to the NSA. He said this arrangement had been misunderstood by French and Spanish newspapers, which reportedthat the NSA was spying in their countries.

But this explanation has not allayed European or domestic US concerns about the exact nature of NSA surveillance in allied countries.

The suggestion that the Spanish intelligence agency was working with the NSA will confirm the suspicions of many in Spain who believe that the government has not only failed to protect its own citizens' privacy, but was actively supportive of US surveillance inside the country.

Although there are strong anti-privacy laws in Spain, and judicial oversight is required before a phone can be tapped, there are concerns that these laws are applied less than rigorously.

The US has offices for the CIA and the NSA in Madrid.

On Monday, Amnesty International called on the Spanish government to "reflect on its total failure to protect its own citizens' privacy".

The prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, announced on Wednesday that the director of the Spanish national intelligence centre (CNI), Félix Sanz Roldán, would be called to appear before the official secrets committee to explain the activities of the NSA and the CNI. Unlike in the US, however, this meeting will be held behind closed doors.

The latest document, published by El Mundo on Wednesday, shows the NSA to be watchful of any information gathered by countries outside the top tier of allies, which together with the US are known as the "five eyes".

According to the Spanish newspaper's report, the NSA says any co-operation with countries outside this group is to be carefully evaluated, and they should be reliable allies, capable of protecting any classified information from the US itself.

Spain, Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Saudis, Switzerland

and many more are working with or spying to each other.

And the Isle of Wight is spying on them all

Bit like it's top secret but even the paper boy knows