US spying on Indian mission in Washington with sophisticated bugs: Report
Iran Press TV
Wed Sep 25, 2013 1:52PM GMT
A media report says the US has used sophisticated equipment to spy on the Indian Embassy in Washington and India's UN office in New York.
The Hindu newspaper said in a report on Wednesday that the US National Security Agency (NSA) has targeted Indian diplomatic mission on the US soil.
'The NSA selected India's UN office and the embassy as location targets for infiltrating their computers and telephones with hi-tech bugs,' the report added.
The US spies reportedly bugged telephone lines of the Indian diplomatic missions and copied their hard disks.
According to the new revelation, India is on a top secret list of countries targeted for intensive spying. The revelations are set to overshadow a Friday meeting between US President Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in Washington.
They will also likely lead to calls by the Indian opposition for a tougher line with the US. The revelations have already strained relations between the US and its foreign allies, notably Brazil.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has cancelled her state visit to Washington over recent revelations that the United States spied on Brazil.
Earlier, a British media report said India is among the top five countries in the world monitored by the US.
A report published by UK's Guardian said in March that the NSA gathered some 6.3 billion pieces of computer network data in India.
The NSA scandal took even broader dimensions when Edward Snowden revealed information about its espionage activities targeting friendly countries.
Snowden, a former CIA employee, leaked two top secret US government spying programs under which the NSA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are eavesdropping on millions of American and European phone records and the Internet data from major Internet companies such as Facebook, Yahoo, Google, Apple, and Microsoft.
JR/SS
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