Moscow has questions about personal data leak in U.S. – Foreign Ministry

(Interfax – MOSCOW, June 19, 2013) The leak of personal data requested by U.S. security services will be discussed at bilateral meetings of Russia and the United States, Russian Foreign Ministry Representative for Human Rights Konstantin Dolgov said.

“We have questions to ask the United States and these issues will not be overlooked in bilateral contacts with the U.S. This is an unprecedented situation encroaching on the interests of tens of millions of citizens, among them Russians,” he said at an expanded meeting of the Federation Council information policy commission.

The attempt of extraterritorial application of U.S. laws, which affects citizens of sovereign states and foreign governments, cannot be disregarded, he said.

“The scandal has caused numerous questions from Europe. These questions are being asked both orally and in writing, and we have questions for the United States as well,” Dolgov said.

We expect that the U.S. authorities will not only just give us some flimsy explanations, he said. “The United States should also take concrete measures to avoid infringement of citizens’ rights in the course of the provision of U.S. national security,” the diplomat remarked.

He emphasized that the rights and interests of Russian citizens must be observed.

A ministerial report on human rights violations in the U.S. gives numerous examples, he added.

“All these facts are confirmed by authoritative sources, and our concerns are not new. Yet the information discovered lately has an unprecedented scope and we do not rule out legislative and other protective measures, which will plug data leaks related to our national security and infringement of rights of our citizens,” Dolgov concluded.

The Washington Post said the U.S. security services had direct access to servers of nine leading Internet companies, including Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft, through their classified PRISM program.

Representatives of Microsoft, Google and Facebook were invited to the Federation Council on Wednesday to explain that situation.