NSA spying "not good, Serbia powerless" - FM

NSA spying "not good, Serbia powerless" - FM

BELGRADE -- Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dačić has said that surveillance conducted by the NSA is "not good practice", but that Serbia is "powerless to change anything."

Dačić added that U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) activity "caused mistrust among states."

"It is not good practice and I'm against it, but we are powerless to change anything. .. It's a topic that has generated great mistrust among countries in the world," Dačić told reporters on Wednesday, during a regular monthly news conference.

He said he was not surprised that Serbia was on the list of countries that NSA was spying on, and then added, "when they (NSA) can eavesdrop on other countries, including Germany, why couldn't they eavesdrop on us."

"They will not hear much new compared to what they hear in press conferences, and so they don't have to put in much effort," the Serbian official remarked, recalling that former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "once said, during a meeting, that she was surprised he was saying the same things during the meeting, and during the press conference."

According to him, "the fight against terrorism and various other types of extremism sometimes encroaches on the area of human rights and civil liberties."

These comments came as the U.S. media published new leaked secret documents from 2010, showing that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) spies on "193 countries, including Serbia."