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Revelations of a huge, secret US internet spying programme have raised awkward questions for allies, forced to explain whether they let Washington spy on their citizens or benefited from snooping that would be illegal at home.
US officials have confirmed the existence of the secret programme, codenamed PRISM, which according to documents leaked to The Washington Post and UK's The Guardian newspaper has given them access to emails, web chats and other communications from companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and Skype.
US law puts limits on the government's authority to snoop at home but virtually no restrictions on American spies eavesdropping on the communications of foreigners, including in allied countries with which Washington shares intelligence.
That means Washington could provide friendly governments with virtually unlimited information about their own citizens' private communication on the internet.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron said on Monday UK's spies acted within the law following revelations the intelligence agencies had received data collected secretly by the US from the world's biggest internet companies.
In Germany, sensitive to decades of snooping by East German Stasi secret police, the Opposition said Chancellor Angela Merkel should do more to protect Germans from US spying and demand answers when US President Barack Obama visits this month.
In Australia, a government source said the US revelations could make it more difficult to pass a law allowing the government to access internet data at home.
And in New Zealand, the revelations could cause further embarrassment for a government already forced to admit that it had illegally spied on an internet file-sharing tycoon who is fighting extradition to the US for computer piracy.
In the UK, which has forged the closest intelligence ties with Washington as the main US battlefield ally in Iraq and Afghanistan, politicians asked whether access to data collected by Washington allowed London's own eavesdropping service GCHQ to evade limits on its own snooping powers.
'Baseless accusation'
"This accusation is baseless," UK's Foreign Secretary William Hague told parliament on Monday. "Any data obtained by us from the US involving UK nationals is subject to proper UK statutory controls and safeguards."
"The idea that in GCHQ people are sitting around working out how to circumvent a UK law with another agency in another country is fanciful," Hague had told BBC TV on Sunday.
Douglas Alexander, the Opposition Labour party's spokesman for foreign affairs, said: "It is vital that the government now reassures people who are rightly concerned about these reports."
In Germany, which has strong rules on privacy, the Opposition said the government was responsible for preventing wholesale US spying on Germans.
"No one has a problem with the US keeping terrorists under surveillance - that has prevented terrorist attacks in Germany," said Thomas Oppermann, a senior lawmaker from the Opposition Social Democrats.
"(But) total surveillance of all citizens by the US is completely inappropriate. The German government must protect the privacy of Germans from the US too."
