- American intelligence agencies hold more
than 1,000 pages of files on Diana, Princess of Wales, which they claim
could cause "exceptionally grave damage to the national security"
if made public.
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- The National Security Agency, which monitors
foreigners and can intercept telephone calls and e-mail, says its records
are "currently and properly classified" top secret.
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- News of the files comes after the release
of papers revealing that Frank Sinatra offered to work undercover for the
FBI.
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- It is not known if the material on Princess
Diana relates to her death. A spokesman at the French embassy in New York
said: "I have no information at all about anything of this kind. We
are not informed about that." The records came to light in response
to a request from APB, a wire service which specialises in criminal justice,
under the Freedom of Information Act. The National Security Agency says
the files are exempt from disclosure.
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- John Pike, an expert on US intelligence
agencies at the Federation of American Scientists, a Washington think-tank,
said: "Basically, they [the NSA] monitor everything outside the United
States, everyone of significance." He thought the agencies could have
been collecting information to protect the Princess from terrorist attacks.
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- The files contain 1,056 pages and are
held by the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency,
the state department and the Defence Intelligence Agency. The National
Security Agency says the documents are being withheld to protect "intelligence
sources and methods" and "the functions or activities of the
NSA". Experts say that even if the contents of a file are not sensitive,
the sources may well be.
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- A spokesman at the Defence Intelligence
Agency, known as the Pentagon's CIA, said he had no idea why it would have
classified information on the Princess. "All our stuff is on military
matters, obviously she wasn't in the military." Mr Pike said the US
government might have been interested in her campaign against landmines.
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- CIA Spies Listened To Diana's Love Secrets
By Mark Dowdney Foreign Editor The Mirror (London) 12-11-98
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- America's spy chiefs admitted last night
they snooped on Princess Diana for years - and learned some of her most
intimate love secrets.
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- They picked up much of their information
by eavesdropping on private telephone conversations between the princess
and her trusted friend Lucia Flecha de Lima, wife of Brazil's ambassador
in Washington DC. In the calls, it is said, Diana poured out her heart
about her romances with Pakistani doctor Hasnat Khan, playboy Dodi Fayed
and others.
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- The US Central Intelligence Agency is
believed to have passed reports on Diana to her enemies in British intelligence.
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- But all three American spy organisations
- the CIA, National Security Agency, and Defence Intelligence - are thought
to have tracked the princess on her frequent visits to the US and sometimes
elsewhere.
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- They are claimed to have monitored virtually
every aspect of her troubled life - even phone calls about her plans for
sons William and Harry.
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- The NSA confirmed yesterday there was
a l,056-page dossier of information on the princess.
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- Grave
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- But they refused to release the dossier,
claiming it is still classified as top-secret more than a year after the
car crash death of Diana and Dodi.
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- A spokesman at NSA headquarters in Maryland
said: "Making the documents public could cause exceptionally grave
damage to national security."
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- But sources say the top-secret classification
was made simply to keep the lid on the way the spies gathered the information.
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- They add that the NSA was aided in the
operation by the CIA and the Defence Intelligence agency which is run from
the Pentagon military HQ.
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- The existence of the dossier was disclosed
by a US news agency seeking the release of the files under the Freedom
of Information Act.
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- A spokesman for Lucia Flecha de Lima
said last night: "We never comment on her private life."
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