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US denies Obama link

AFP, Berlin
Transatlantic tensions reached boiling point yesterday as Washington denied reports President Barack Obama knew US spies were tapping German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Leaked documents from former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden indicate that US spy agencies accessed the electronic communications of dozens of world leaders and possibly millions of foreign nationals.
As outrage over secret US surveillance of leaders and average citizens mounted with a tide of new reports, a delegation from the European Parliament was due in Washington to demand answers on the extent of the operations.
The European Parliament said its delegation's three-day mission to Washington would probe US authorities on the impact of surveillance programmes "on EU citizens' fundamental rights" and discuss a recent request to suspend an EU-US agreement on the transfer of bank data in the wake of the scandal and seek clarity on the charges of spying on Merkel.
The outrage came on the heels of a Wall Street Journal article that Obama learned of the electronic surveillance of Merkel and other world leaders in an internal mid-year review.
The White House then ordered an end to the programmes, according to the Journal.
German media had reported at the weekend that eavesdropping on Merkel's phone may have started in 2002.
And the daily Bild am Sonntag quoted US intelligence sources as saying that Obama himself had been informed of the phone tap against Merkel by NSA chief General Keith Alexander in 2010 but allowed it to continue.
NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines however denied the allegation.
"Alexander did not discuss with President Obama in 2010 an alleged foreign intelligence operation involving German Chancellor Merkel, nor has he ever discussed alleged operations involving Chancellor Merkel," Vanee said Sunday.
According to the Journal, Obama was "briefed on and approved of broader intelligence-collection 'priorities,"' but deputies decided on specific targets because it would have been impractical to brief the president on all of eavesdropping operations.
"These decisions are made at NSA," the unnamed official told the Journal.
"The president doesn't sign off on this stuff."
Some programmes have been scheduled to end but have not yet been terminated due to the complicated nature of surveillance: a leader such as Merkel may be communicating with someone else whom Washington is monitoring, officials told the newspaper.