Britain's electronic intelligence agency spied delegates during their participation in the 2009 G20 summit in London, the Guardian reported on Sunday citing U.S. whistle-blower Edward Snowden.
The British newspaper, which earlier this month published disclosures about U.S. government's top secret surveillance programs, claimed that it received documents uncovered by Snowden, revealing surveillance of G20 delegates' emails and BlackBerrys.
The latest report is published on the eve of another economic summit hosted by UK. Some of the leaders who are currently in the Northern Irish city of Lough Erne were participants of the G20 summit in April and September 2009, but it is not clear if they were targets in the secret operations.
The Guardian reported that the documents show that the British signals intelligence agency GCHQ used "ground-breaking intelligence capabilities" to intercept phone calls made by foreign political leaders and officials during the London summit meetings, and monitored their computers under instructions by the British government.
Fake Internet cafes were reportedly set up for delegates to intercept their e-mails, which will provide "sustained intelligence options against them even after conference has finished."
GCHQ is said to have supplied 45 analysts with a live round-the-clock summary of one-to-one phone calls at the summit. GCHQ is Britain's equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).
Revelations about the alleged reach of NSA's surveillance efforts stunned the world on June 6, with the Washington Post and The Guardian reporting on its alleged ongoing efforts to monitor activities of millions of people both inside the United States and overseas.
They include accessing information on social media and other Internet sites, as well as collecting data from mobile phone call records.
According to media reports, a leaked top secret document revealed that the NSA has obtained direct access to the systems of several U.S.-based Internet and tech companies, including Google, Facebook, and Apple.
Booz Allen Hamilton, a defense contractor for NSA, dismissed Snowden after the computer analyst disclosed the sensitive information to the media while holed up in a hotel in Hong Kong.
The European Union expressed deep concern over the reports, while Snowden has gone hiding in Hong Kong after he checked out of the Mira hotel on June 10.
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