US President Barack Obama has determined not to pursue surveillance of "dozens of world leaders", whom a senior administration official today described as "friendly and allied nations", stressing that this included primarily heads of states.
Though the list is expected to include leaders from countries like India, France, Germany and Britain, the official refrained from providing the list of the "dozens of countries", whom the Obama Administration has determined be excluded from America's controversial surveillance programme.
"We frankly can't be in the business of going individual by individual to determine every foreign leader that we may or may not be collecting intelligence on. What I can tell you, though, is that having looked at this issue, and having reviewed our signals intelligence, we have made determinations to not pursue surveillance on dozens of heads of state in government," said a senior administration requesting anonymity.
"So this is not, you know, just a case where (the German Chancellor) Angela Merkel is not being subject to surveillance. This is something that applies; again, we determined that we will not pursue this type of surveillance on the order of dozens of leaders," the official said.
When asked if the list of foreign leaders included only the heads of the state or other leaders as well, the official said: "We focused on heads of state in government. Frankly, that was the issue that had emerged. We do believe that's a unique category.
"So the changes that have been made and the decisions that have been made relate specifically to heads of state and government. I will say that we have also initiated bilateral conversations with other governments about how more broadly we can build better cooperation, coordination in terms of our intelligence activities.
"With respect to other countries we're pursuing on a bilateral basis, for instance, with the French, we've been in very active conversations with them on this, how we can improve coordination and cooperation and address a broader category of issues," the official said.
In his major policy speech on internet and phone surveillance programme, Obama said people around the world - regardless of their nationality - should know the US is not spying on ordinary people who don't threaten our national security and takes their privacy concerns into account.
"This applies to foreign leaders as well," Obama said.
