The European Commission has written to British Foreign Secretary William Hague demanding answers by the end of the week on leaked reports that Britain’s spy services are tapping cables that carry the world’s phone calls and Internet

The European Commission has written to British Foreign Secretary William Hague demanding answers by the end of the week on leaked reports that Britain's spy services are tapping cables that carry the world's phone calls and Internet traffic.
  
"I have sent a letter to express my concern," the EU's Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding told a briefing on Wednesday, adding: "I have asked for a very urgent reply by the end of this week."
  
The claims, published by The Guardian newspaper, are based on leaked documents from US ex-intelligence technician Edward Snowden, who is now at a Moscow airport on the run from US authorities.
  
The report on the British program codenamed Tempora has sparked a fresh outcry from privacy campaigners.
 
German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said that if true it would be "like a nightmare out of Hollywood". Reding said she had asked Hague to clarify the extent of the program, whether the data stayed in Britain or was passed to other countries, whether the spying was limited to individual cases and what the possibilities for legal redress were.
  
"It is a very clear signal that we need... the right balance between the protection of data and the processing of data for security reasons," Reding said.