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NSA revelations: A timeline of what's come out since Snowden leaks began

Since Edward Snowden's first published leak about National Security Agency surveillance techniques appeared in The Guardian on June 5, new revelations have been steadily trickling out. Here's a look at what we've learned since June, broken down by 16 key dates. 

Oct. 22, 2013

Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP
President Barack Obama walks with Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel toward a group photo outside of the Konstantin Palace in St. Petersburg in September 2013.

The NSA had wiretapped the offices of the French mission to the United Nations and the French Embassy in Washington, the French newspaper Le Monde first reported. The report was based on NSA documents from September 2010, provided by Snowden, showing that the NSA had tapped French diplomats’ communications. Just one day later, the German chancellor called President Obama for assurance that her cellphone had not been been a target of NSA surveillance operations from 2002 to 2007, as documents provided by Snowden to German news magazine Der Spiegel appeared to show.

Why is this important? The revelations added Germany and France to a long list of close US allies demanding apologies and explanations for the NSA’s aggressive spying on them during the past decade. In addition adding a chill to the US relationships with its most valuable allies, the documents tarnished the internal relationship between the NSA and the White House. White House officials first said that they had been unaware of the NSA’s spying on top officials of allies, but the NSA was outraged over the White House’s apparent attempt to dodge responsibility. Later, the White House changed its position to say that it was aware of the spying, a statement that came too late to quell criticism of the White House’s apparent lack of oversight or control of the NSA.

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

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