Europe wants explanations from US concerning total surveillance

Speaking at a meeting in the Ministry of Economy and Technologies, Ms. Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said:

"Things like that resemble the time of the Cold War. The 21st century is a time when information – as a rule, preserved by electronic means – plays an extremely important role, and people want guarantees of security of their private information. We are very concerned with the fact that the US is working out a program called "Prism”, aimed at intercepting people's private information. We would appreciate it if representatives of various companies and various organizations explain to us whether and how we can keep our private information secure now while communicating with someone on the Web.”

Last week, participants of a meeting of the German parliament discussed issues of security in the Internet, and, in particular, new spying programs. German MPs are insisting that draft laws should be worked out, which would ban spreading any personal data about employees of German establishments and enterprises outside the European Union.

The German Ministry of Justice says that Germany's authorities have first learned about the US "Prism” program from publications in media sources. The ministry's representative Ulrich Weinbrenner comments:

"We have taken into account this information in media sources and have asked several German government organizations – the police, the Federal Office of the Criminal Police, the Federal Service of Protection of the Constitution and the Federal Office of Information Security – to tell us what they know about the "Prizm” program. All these organization answered that they have no information about it. The same answer came from Germany's Federal Intelligence Service and the Customs Criminal Office.”

Germany's Minister of Economy and Technologies Philipp Rosler is also concerned with the news about the creation of a program for spying on the Web.

"We are very concerned with this,” he says, "and we would like to start an open dialog over this issue. Together with Germany's Minister of Justice Sabina Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, we would like representatives of Web industry to answer the following questions: Have private messages of German citizens been intercepted on the Web? If yes, what was the scale of these interceptions? Did they know about this interceptions, have they given their consent to it? If this interceptions were done against the will of people whose messages were intercepted, have the interceptors been punished in any way?”

Mr. Rosler is not the only person who would have liked to receive answers to these questions. The European Commission is demanding explanations from the US why US secret services have spied on the Web after a number of European officials. A candidate for the German Chancellor's post from the Socialist Democratic Party Peer Steinbruck believes that the incumbent Chancellor Angela Merkel is incapable of keeping the situation with the Web spying under control. Mr. Steinbruck is demanding that Ms. Merkel should give explanations concerning this issue. Several other German parties – for example, the Pirate Party – are also putting forward similar accusation against Ms. Merkel. In Germany, the Chancellor's office coordinates the work of special services, and Ms. Merkel's opponents believe that she is responsible for the poor work of the country's special services.

In 3 months from now, parliamentary elections are due to be held in Germany. In such a situation, every step of Ms. Merkel, who, besides being Chancellor, is also the head of the Christian Democratic Union Party, may either raise or decrease her popularity.

Voice of Russia