NSA Spying Scandal Grows Amid Anger in France and Mexico

New reports are emerging on NSA surveillance of friendly governments, adding another dimension to the growing international scandal surrounding the Obama Administration’s surveillance.

French newspaper Le Monde revealed massive surveillance of France, one of America’s closest allies, with 70.3 million telephone conversations involving French citizens, politicians and businesses recorded in their entirety under the NSA’s data grab.

Meanwhile Der Spiegel has uncovered another of the NSA’s schemes, hacking into the email account of former Mexican President Felipe Calderon. Several other reports have emerged in the past few weeks on the NSA’s programs in Mexico.

Both nations have expressed serious opposition to the NSA’s targeting, and the revelations undercut Obama Administration claims that the global surveillance is aimed entirely at “terrorists.” Indeed, it seems aimed at literally everybody, and surprisingly large amounts of resources seem dedicated to targeting America’s allies, not its enemies.

France and Mexico are just the latest revealed to be targets, following on from scandals about surveillance against Germany and Brazil. Though treaties forbid the US from spying on other English-speaking nations, the growing realization is that the NSA has gone from collecting Cold War-era Soviet intercepts to spying on anybody they can, and that means everybody.