Obama orders curbs on NSA spying on UN headquarters
US President Barack Obama recently ordered the National Security Agency to curtail eavesdropping on the United Nations headquarters in New York as part of a review of US electronic surveillance, according to a US government official.
Obama's order is the latest known move by the White House to limit the NSA's vast intelligence collection, in the wake of protests by allies, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, over US spying on foreign heads of state.
The full extent of US eavesdropping on the United Nations is not publicly known, nor is it clear whether the United States has stopped all monitoring of diplomats assigned to the UN in New York or elsewhere around the world. According to the official, the president's aides said in briefings the White House no longer wanted to conduct certain monitoring of UN targets. The official said that the decision was made within the last few weeks.
