Guardian: UK spies hacked foreign diplomats’ phones, emails at conferences

LONDON – The Guardian newspaper says that the British eavesdropping agency GCHQ hacked into the emails and phones of foreign diplomats at international conferences to get an edge in high-stakes international negotiations.

The report published late Sunday is the latest in a series of revelations which have ignited a worldwide debate over the scope of Western intelligence gathering. But unlike previous revelations targeting the U.S. National Security Agency, this story focuses on Britain’s GCHQ.

The report, based on leaked documents supplied by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, said that GCHQ stole diplomats’ passwords and surreptitiously read their emails at a G-20 conference in 2009.

GCHQ did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

The story’s publication comes ahead of this week’s G-8 summit in Northern Ireland.