BERLIN: The United States taps half a billion phone calls, e-mails and text messages in Germany in a typical month and has classed its biggest European ally as a target similar to China, according to secret US documents quoted by a German newsmagazine.
The revelations of alleged US surveillance programmes based on documents taken by fugitive former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden have raised a political furore in the United States and abroad over the balance between privacy rights and national security.