Tony Blair's private life spied on by US intelligence agency

American intelligence spied on the private life of Tony Blair while he was prime minister, a US whistle-blower has claimed.

David Murfee Faulk said he saw a file on Mr Blair in 2006 which contained information of a "personal nature" gleaned from eavesdropping on his private telephone conversations.

The accusation that the Bush regime was spying on its closest ally in the war on terror is particularly embarrassing as there is understood to have been an understanding between the two countries that such espionage would not be carried out.



Mr Faulk said he had top secret clearance as a US Army Arab linguist at a covert giant listening post run by the National Security Agency.

He was able to gain access to an intelligence data base of phone call recordings and transcripts, code-named Anchory, where he found a file on Mr Blair.

According to former US intelligence officials, there has been a long-standing agreement with Britain not to collect such information on each other's leaders. "If it is true that we maintained a file on Blair, it would represent a huge breach of the agreement we have with the Brits," a former CIA official said.