Press Statement
The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement:
The exposure that the US National Security Agency has been bugging the Indian embassy in Washington alongwith the embassies of 37 other countries comes after the earlier report that the US has been mining internet and telephone data from India on a large scale. These exposures have come from the whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The UPA government should have strongly protested against such surveillance and bugging. Instead, it is shocking that the External Affairs Minister, Salman Khurshid has sought to justify the snooping by stating that “It is not snooping. It is only computer study and computer analysis of patterns of calls”. India has a foreign minister who is not worried that the Indian embassy in Washington is bugged by the US intelligence agency. This shameful remark has come at a time when even the close allies of the United States like Germany and France have protested against the US snooping on their countries.
The Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) demands that the Manmohan Singh Government immediately lodge a strong protest against the US snooping activities and demand its halt forthwith.