Leaked U.S. documents appearing to show that the National Security Agency collected data on tens of millions of European phone records, an issue that has sparked outrage among U.S. allies, actually represented data handed over to the NSA by European intelligence services as part of joint operations, U.S. officials said Tuesday.
The claim refutes reports in leading French and Spanish newspapers suggesting that the NSA had vacuumed up French and Spanish telephone records without the knowledge of those governments. U.S. officials now say that the NSA didn’t collect the data — the intelligence services of those countries did.
Exactly how the telephone records were used is unclear, but U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss classified programs portrayed the operation as related to counter-terrorism efforts and force protection in Afghanistan.
U.S. intelligence officials had disputed the newspaper stories, but had avoided citing the complicity of European spy agencies until now because of diplomatic sensitivities about exposing the role of foreign intelligence partners. . .