NSA chief Keith Alexander blames diplomats for surveillance requests

By artappraiser on Fri, 11/01/2013 - 11:41am |

Barbed exchange with former ambassador over spying on foreign leaders likely to deepen rift with Obama administration

By Paul Lewis in Baltimore, theguardian.com, Oct. 31, 2013

[....] The NSA chief was challenged by James Carew Rosapepe, who served as an ambassador under the Clinton administration, over the monitoring of the German chancellor Angela Merkel's phone. Rosapepe, now a Democratic state senator in Maryland, pressed Alexander to give "a national security justification" for the agency's use of surveillance tools intended for combating terrorism against "democratically elected leaders and private businesses". "We all joke that everyone is spying on everyone," he said. "But that is not a national security justification."

Alexander replied: "That is a great question, in fact as an ambassador you have part of the answer. Because we the intelligence agencies don't come up with the requirements. The policymakers come up with the requirements."

He went on: "One of those groups would have been, let me think, hold on, oh: ambassadors." [....]

URL:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/01/nsa-keith-alexander-blames-diplomats-surveillance-foreign-leaders

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Blame game food fight:

US surveillance has gone too far, John Kerry admits

Kerry says certain practices occurred 'on autopilot' and vows to meet allies to repair damage caused by NSA spying revelations

By Dan Roberts and Spencer Ackerman in Washington and Paul Lewis in Baltimore,
theguardian.com, 1 Nov. 2013

[....] In recent days, the Obama administration has put some distance between it and the National Security Agency (NSA). Kerry's comments are a reflection in particular of a concern about the diplomatic fallout from the revelation that the US monitored the cellphone of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.

The tactic has irritated senior intelligence officials. On Thursday evening, the director of the NSA, General Keith Alexander, blamed US diplomats for requests to place foreign leaders under surveillance [....]

by artappraiser on Fri, 11/01/2013 - 11:50am

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