NSA could be spying on Serbian officials - daily

NSA could be spying on Serbian officials - daily

At the same time, added the source, "it is certain that because of Serbia's relationship with Russia communications of local politicians are also of interest."

The daily further reported that domestic conversations of state officials are protected from eavesdropping from the outside, "but there is no protection for international calls."

According to this, Serbian services have a system in place that interferes with wiretapping of conversations conducted in the territory of our country.

However, local officials "may be less carefree when it comes to services from abroad attempting to eavesdrop on them."

The problem is the protection of conversations with counterparts located outside the borders of Serbia, writes the daily, and adds that even officials of those countries that "invest much more in security technologies" are not safe, mentioning German Chancellor Angela Merkel as an example.

The Security-Information Agency (BIA) on Tuesday declined to comment, and also did not wish to say whether the NSA carried out its spying activities in Serbia since 2010, when the U.S. government allowed it to "collect sensitive data."

The newspaper noted that "although there are phones in the market that encrypt conversations, local politicians do not have them."

On Tuesday, the Washington Post cited confidential documents to report that the NSA was authorized to "intercept communications'' around the world.

The U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board has announced that it thought the program of the National Security Agency to intercept the communications of foreign nationals was "largely lawful and a useful tool in the fight against terrorism."

AFP reported that the board earlier this year issued a sharp rebuke of U.S. domestic surveillance efforts, but said in a preliminary report that the foreign intelligence efforts were "generally in line with the U.S. constitution," and also raised some concerns about "unintentional data gathering of Americans."