Mexico probes US spying, France says snooping must end
The anger in Mexico City and Paris has put Washington in an awkward position.
MEXICO CITY (AFP) - Mexico is to investigate allegations that the United States spied on the emails of President Enrique Pena Nieto and his predecessor, the latest diplomatic wrangle stemming from America's intelligence-gathering efforts.
The row, following leaks from the former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, coincided with a report that millions of phone calls in France were being monitored by the National Security Agency.
While France told the United States to stop snooping on its citizens, the US Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, said Tuesday that reports from the daily Le Monde contained "inaccurate and misleading" information about America's foreign intelligence activities.
The anger in Mexico City and Paris has put Washington in an awkward position with allies that collaborate on everything from terror investigations to the war on drugs.
Pena Nieto ordered an "exhaustive" probe into claims that the NSA hacked his emails while he was running for office last year, as well as the messages of predecessor Felipe Calderon while in office.
The Mexican investigation will look into whether such spying indeed took place and if any local officials were complicit, said Interior Minister Miguel Angel Osorio Chong.
Since Pena Nieto took office in December, Mexico has "revised and strengthened" the security of the president's voice and computer communications, he added.
The allegations that Calderon was spied on from May 2010 were reported by German weekly Der Spiegel on Sunday after a similar report by US journalist Glenn Greenwald last month that Pena Nieto had been targeted by the NSA.
The Mexican leader has said that US President Barack Obama pledged to launch an investigation into the alleged spying on his emails.
But Foreign Minister Jose Antonio Meade said he would summon the US ambassador over the latest claims and that the American response so far had been "unacceptable."
