Obama faces grilling from European leaders over spying programs... as Germans and Italians say PRISM would be illegal in EU countries



President Barack Obama will face a barrage of questions and criticism about the U.S.'s spying programs from European leaders this week when he crosses the Atlantic for the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland.



German Chancellor Angela Merkel has already said that she will press Obama about the 'possible impairment of the rights of German citizens' when he visits Berlin next week.



European Unions officials and authorities in Italy have also publicly expressed concerns about the widespread surveillance activities.

Tough questions: German Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed to prod President Obama over the PRISM program's spying on German citizens

Obama will traveled to Northern Ireland and Germany this weekend and next week, where he will be questioned about the PRISM program

The Italian commissioner in charge of data protection, Antonello Soro, went so far as to say the programs 'would not be legal in Italy,' the Guardian reports.

He added that PRISM and a cell phone drag net that tracks all incoming and outgoing calls would be 'contrary to the principles of our legislation and would represent a very serious violation.'

Some British leaders have said the United Kingdom benefited from the Obama Administration's mass intelligence-gathering sources, though they insist and British secret service requested from the Americans went through the traditional legal channels.



Obama is already facing and uproar in the United States after NSA data collection programs were made public last week by former contractor Edward Snowden.

The Obama Administration claims that PRISM - which collects online information about users of products by Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple - only targets foreigners and that U.S. citizens are exempt from monitoring.



Antonello Soro, Italy's personal data protection commissioner, said the PRISM program would be illegal in his country

However, leaders of European nations are now questioning whether the program violates their privacy protection laws.



European Commissioner for Justice Viviane Reding said that 'a clear legal framework for the protection of personal data is not a luxury or constraint but a fundamental right.'

She promised to press Obama on the PRISM program at the G8 summit this weekend.

Germany's federal data protections commissioner Peter Schaar called the snooping on German citizens 'unacceptable.'



