Snowden Leaks Spark Controversy in Europe Over NSA Surveillance

Two months before Germans go to the polls, US surveillance practices have become a national election issue in Germany thanks in large part to the fugitive Edward Snowden. The former intelligence analyst holed up at a Moscow airport for the past month is facing espionage charges for leaking details on the National Security Agency’s electronic monitoring program.

Snowden’s allegations prompted a US House amendment to curb the NSA program that went down in a narrow defeat Wednesday.

Now, they have riled up an election campaign in Germany that was not supposed to be a tight race, and prompted calls for tighter European Union restrictions on surveillance.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has put American spying practices in a critical light, saying this is “not how we would expect those we consider friends to treat us.”

But the German news magazine Der Spiegel has reported that German intelligence officers under Merkel’s own administration have cooperated with the NSA.

The World’s host Carol Hills spoke about the fallout in Germany and the European Union from Snowden’s leaks with Constanze Stelzenmuller of the German Marshall Fund in Berlin.