U.S. spied on UN: German weekly

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BERLIN, Aug. 25 -- U.S. intelligence agency tapped the headquarter of the United Nations in New York, reported German weekly Der Spiegel on Sunday, citing secret documents.

The magazine saidthat by analysing documents from former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden it found American National Security Agency penetrated the internal video conference system of the UN and cracked its encryption last summer.

This led to "a dramatic improvement of data on video conferencing and the ability to decrypt that data" for NSA, according to the documents. Within three weeks, the number of decrypted communications had risen from 12 to 458.

Der Spiegel also claimed that the U.S. intelligence agency spied on the European Union mission after it moved to its new embassy in New York last September. The new embassy's plans, as well as its IT infrastructure and server, were among Snowden's copies of the NSA documents.

According to the documents analysed by the weekly, NSA also ran a monitoring program including more than 80 embassies and consulates worldwide. The program was called "Special Collection Service" and operated without the knowledge of the host country.

NSA documents urged to keep the existence of the program as a secret at all costs, as "relations with the host country would be seriously damaged", if it was leaked, Der Spiegel reported.

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