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| MEPs seek video link with Snowden for NSA spying probe | MEPs seek video link with Snowden for NSA spying probe |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Euro MPs have agreed to invite fugitive US whistleblower Edward Snowden to give evidence via live video link to a European Parliament inquiry into US surveillance. | Euro MPs have agreed to invite fugitive US whistleblower Edward Snowden to give evidence via live video link to a European Parliament inquiry into US surveillance. |
| Mr Snowden is in Russia, wanted by the US over his revelations about National Security Agency (NSA) snooping. | Mr Snowden is in Russia, wanted by the US over his revelations about National Security Agency (NSA) snooping. |
| The parliamentary Civil Liberties Committee vote was passed by 36 votes in favour, two against and one abstention. No date has been fixed yet. | The parliamentary Civil Liberties Committee vote was passed by 36 votes in favour, two against and one abstention. No date has been fixed yet. |
| The MEPs are contacting his lawyers. | The MEPs are contacting his lawyers. |
| A British Labour MEP, Claude Moraes, is spearheading the MEPs' investigation and has drafted a report on the NSA leaks. | |
| Last month the MEPs' committee held hearings on the US spying revelations. | |
| According to secret files leaked to the media by Mr Snowden, the US government, assisted by the UK spy agency GCHQ, conducts far-reaching global surveillance of internet and telephone traffic. | |
| There is speculation that Mr Snowden could speak to the MEPs via video link in late January. But he has not yet responded to the invitation. | |
| He was granted temporary asylum in Moscow on 1 August last year, having fled the US in May. | |
| The US surveillance allegedly included the NSA tapping the mobile phone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and eavesdropping on communications in EU institutions. | |
| In a Christmas message broadcast on UK Channel 4 television last month - billed as an alternative to the Queen's annual speech - Mr Snowden said modern surveillance was more powerful than in George Orwell's nightmarish "Big Brother" state, in the novel 1984. | |
| He said he just wanted "the public to be able to have a say in how they are governed". |