US lawmaker: French would pop champagne corks if they understood secret phone taps

A top US lawmaker said Sunday that French citizens "would be popping champagne corks" if they knew exactly what US National Security Agency surveillance was about and how the practice keeps them safe. This after French newspaper Le Monde revealed Monday that the NSA had secretly recorded 70.3 million phone calls made by French citizens over a 30-day period between December 10 and January 8 this year, citing documents leaked by former US security contractor Edward Snowden.

NSA monitoring base, Germany Reuters/Michael Dalder

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers insisted that the collection was a counterterrorism program that did not target French citizens and told news channel CNN "I think the bigger news story here would be if the United States intelligence services weren't trying to collect information that would protect US interests both at home and abroad."

Roger's comments come amid a widening spying row between Europe and the US, with European Union leaders backing a Franco-German move to establish new rules for spying in wake of the phone tapping revelations, including suspicions of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone being bugged.

An EU Council statement Friday said the partnership between Europe and the US "must be based on respect and trust," adding that "a lack of trust could prejudice the necessary cooperation in the field of intelligence gathering."

Rogers, however, went on to suggest that US leaders failed to foresee the rise of fascism and communism in early 20th century Europe because American intelligence officials were not spying extensively on European allies' communications. "In the 1930s, we had this debate before. We decided we were going to turn off our ability to even listen to friends," he said, before adding "Look what happened. ..  We didn't see any of it. It resulted in the death of nearly tens of millions of people."