概要：近日有媒体爆料，默克尔的电话常年被美国国家安全局监听，德国政府昨日称将非常严肃地处理此事。据默克尔的发言人塞伯特称，德国很快向美国方面发出要求，要其给出迅速、全面的解释。
美国白宫称奥巴马总统昨夜与默克尔通了电话，默克尔要求奥巴马给出解释，并向她保证窃听爆料是假的。同时默克尔的发言人透露，默克尔还向美国总统奥巴马明确表示，如果监听确实存在，将是“完全不可接受”的，是对双方互信关系的严重破坏。
而奥巴马则表示美国情报机构现在没有、将来也不会窃听她的通讯。
但白宫并没有排除过去曾对默克尔进行监听的嫌疑。同时据德国《明镜周刊》称，美国国家安全局的发言人不愿回应过去是否监听的问题。
德国外交部门的消息人士称，他们对结果并不满意，将会寻求进一步的解释。德国联邦情报局也已开始调查此事。
German fury as U.S. is forced to deny that spies are hacking into Merkel's phone
Angela Merkel's government is taking allegations 'extremely seriously'
Germany has requested 'immediate and comprehensive clarification'
Obama promised US intelligence was not listening to communications
But Germany seeking clarification over possible monitoring in the past
US confirms that UK PM David Cameron's communications aren't hacked
A White House spokesman said they haven't been in the past
Francois Hollande is pushing the topic as one for discussion at EU summit
The French president is angry at reports of monitoring of French calls
A diplomatic row was looming over Europe last night following allegations that America has been listening into the phone calls of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Her government yesterday said it took the allegations ‘extremely seriously’ after media reports said the National Security Agency had hacked into her mobile phone ‘for years’.
While the White House has denied that UK Prime Minister David Cameron's communications were ever monitored, it refused to confirm or deny whether the same assurances could be given regarding Ms Merkel.
The White House said President Obama assured Mrs Merkel that US intelligence was not listening to her communications
‘We swiftly sent a request to our American partners asking for an immediate and comprehensive clarification,’ her spokesman Steffen Seibert said.
‘If true, this practice must be stopped immediately.’
He added that Mrs Merkel had made it clear to Barack Obama that if the information proved correct it would be ‘completely unacceptable’ and a ‘grave breach of trust’.
The news that the government of the world’s most powerful man had eavesdropped on the phone messages of the world’s most powerful woman ? his staunch ally ? set alarms ringing on both continents.
Germany’s BND spy agency is investigating what took place, but the fact that the government has publicly demanded clarification is evidence, said experts, that there is a ‘strong belief’ that the hacking claim is true.
The White House said that Mr Obama and Mrs Merkel spoke on the phone last night about the allegation.
Mrs Merkel called the US President to seek an explanation and get his assurance that the claims were not true.
Mr Obama promised her US intelligence was not listening to her communications, and would not in future.
But the White House did not explicitly rule out the possibility that her communications had been monitored in the past.
German diplomatic sources said they were still not satisfied and would demand further clarification over the allegations.
Mr Seibert said: ‘The Federal Republic, as a close ally of the United States of America, expects a clear contractual agreement on the activities of the security services of both countries and their co-operation.’
He added that the German leader views practices such as those alleged as 'completely unacceptable'.
She has previously referred to the monitoring of communications by the NSA as 'Cold War tactics'.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said: ‘The United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the chancellor.’
But Der Spiegel magazine said an NSA spokesman would not say whether such snooping had occurred in the past.
According to the Telegraph, a German source said: 'I would just urge you to look at the tenses used by the White House.
'They speak only about the present and the future, but not about the past. The clarification we are seeking is about the issue overall.'
The newspaper added that Caitlin Hayden, a spokesman for the National Security Council, confirmed that the U.S had never monitored David Cameron's communications.
The German Press has reacted with equal fury this morning.
Today's Suddeutscher Zeitung, one of the country's most respectable publications, called the allegations the 'biggest affront' and describes it as an attack on her 'political heart'.
The row comes as French President Francois Hollande is pushing for the issue to be discussed at an imminent EU summit in Brussels.
According to the BBC, several European leaders are likely to use the summit to demand further explanation and clarification from America.
Earlier this week, the French Government summoned the U.S ambassador to Paris to demand an explanation amid reports that the NSA had monitored 70 per cent of French communications in just one month.
The scale of spying by America on French individuals and companies was revealed in documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the whistleblower and former contractor at the National Security Agency (NSA).
If repeated every month, more than 843.6 million calls a year would be intercepted in a country with a population of just 65 million.
The report in Le Monde, co-written by Glenn Greenwald who originally revealed the NSA surveillance program, found that when certain numbers were used, the conversations were automatically recorded.
Citing Snowden's leaked documents, Le Monde says links to terrorism were not always necessary for an intercept to take place.
Snowden had previously claimed that many of the west's major powers, including Germany, are 'in bed' with the NSA.
Der Spiegel magazine quoted him as saying in July that some European countries work with the NSA on a 'no-questions asked' basis.
He said: ‘Other agencies don't ask us where we got the information from and we don't ask them. That way they can protect their top politicians from the backlash in case it emerges how massively people's privacy is abused worldwide.’
Der Spiegel has previously reported that on an average day, the NSA monitored about 20 million German phone connections and 10 million internet data sets, rising to 60 million phone connections on busy days.
Germans are particularly sensitive about eavesdropping because of the intrusive surveillance in the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR) and during the Nazi era.
The NSA has also been accused of hacking into the phones of the Mexican president. (每日邮报)
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