GENEVA – The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva says neither she nor her staff has ever spied on U.N. officials as suggested in a diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks.
One of the American memos posted on the website appears to encourage U.S. diplomats at the United Nations to collect detailed information and even biometric data about senior U.N. staff and foreign diplomats.
U.S. Ambassador Betty E. King told reporters Thursday that "I just want to assure everybody we're not collecting data on U.N. officials."
King declined to discuss the accuracy and provenance of the memo. She says the leaks could harm U.S. diplomatic efforts as "diplomacy has got to have some guarantees of privacy."
