dagblog - Comments for "Obama left increasingly isolated as anger builds among key US allies"

NSA tells the House Committee

artappraiser — Tue, 29 Oct 2013 23:58:58 +0000

In reply to Obama left increasingly isolated as anger builds among key US allies

NSA tells the House Committee that they did not spy on the European people, that European leaders did and gave them the info. And then Alexander and Clapper strongly defended spying on European leaders:

N.S.A. Head Says European Data Was Collected by Allies
By Michael S. Schmidt, New York Times, Oct. 29, 2013

[....] “This is not information we collected on European citizens,” said the agency’s director, Gen. Keith B. Alexander. “It represents information that we and our NATO allies have collected in defense of our countries and in support of military operations.”

General Alexander said that phone data was generally collected outside Europe.

The Wall Street Journal reported on its website on Tuesday that intelligence services in France and Spain had collected phone records of their citizens and turned them over to the N.S.A. as part of an arrangement to mitigate threats against American and allied troops and civilians.

But General Alexander and James R. Clapper Jr., director of national intelligence, broadly defended the N.S.A.'s practice of spying on foreign leaders. Such espionage, they said, was a basic pillar of American intelligence operations that had gone on for decades.

Both men said the intelligence was invaluable because it provided American leaders with an idea of how other countries planned to act toward the United States.

Such spying was essential, the officials said, because other countries, including allies, spy on the United States. “It is one of the first things I learned in intelligence school in 1963,” Mr. Clapper said. “It’s a fundamental given.”

The two officials defended their operations before the House Intelligence Committee at a time the N.S.A. has come under growing criticsm and calls for a congressional review of the nation’s surveillance efforts. They said members of the intelligence community were also American citizens who were determined to protect American privacy while identifying national security threats.

“To be sure, on occasion we have made mistakes,” Mr. Clapper said, adding that the intelligence agencies would work with Congress to address any concerns. [....]

NYTimes' government sources

artappraiser — Tue, 29 Oct 2013 17:07:15 +0000

In reply to Obama left increasingly isolated as anger builds among key US allies

NYTimes' government sources say NSA stopped eavesdropping on Merkl only after Snowden's theft made it clear that it might be discovered, not because the president had anything to do with stopping it. And there is admission that her phone calls were recorded basically because there's no American law against it. And Dennis Blair, Obama's first director of national intelligence, was willing to be quoted as saying he has no sympathy for the complaints.

Excerpt from Obama May Ban Spying on Heads of Allied States
by Mark Landler and David E. Sanger, New York Times, Oct. 29, 2013:

The National Security Agency has said it did not inform Mr. Obama of its reported monitoring of Ms. Merkel, which appears to have started in 2002 and was not suspended until sometime last summer after the theft of the N.S.A. data by Mr. Snowden was discovered.

“At that point it was clear that lists of targeted foreign officials may well become public,” said one official, “so many of the interceptions were suspended.”

The N.S.A.'s documentation on Ms. Merkel’s case authorized the agency’s operatives in Germany not only to collect data about the numbers she was calling, but also to listen in on her conversations, according to current and former administration officials.

It was unclear whether excerpts from Ms. Merkel’s conversations appeared in intelligence reports that were circulated in Washington or shared with the White House. Officials said they had never seen information attributed to an intercept of Ms. Merkel’s conversations. But they said it was likely that some conversations had been recorded simply because the N.S.A. had focused on her for so long.

In both public comments and private interchanges with German officials, the Obama administration has refused to confirm that Ms. Merkel’s phone was targeted, though it has said that it is not the subject of N.S.A. action now, and will not be in the future.

The refusal to talk about the past has further angered German officials, who have said the surveillance has broken trust between two close allies. The Germans were particularly angry that the operation appears to have been run from inside the American Embassy or somewhere near it, in the heart of Berlin, steps from the Brandenburg Gate.

None of the officials and former officials who were interviewed would speak directly about the decision to target Ms. Merkel, saying that information was classified. But they said the legal distinction between tapping a conversation and simply collecting telephone “metadata” — essentially the kind of information about a telephone call that would be found on a telephone bill — existed only for domestic telephone calls, or calls involving United States citizens.

To record the conversation of a “U.S. Person,” the intelligence agencies would need a warrant. But no such distinction applies to intercepting the calls of foreigners on foreign soil — though those intercepts may be a violation of local law.

That means that the intercepts of other world leaders could have also involved both information about the calls and the conversations themselves.

That means that the intercepts of other world leaders could have also involved both information about the calls and the conversations themselves.

Dennis C. Blair, Mr. Obama’s first director of national intelligence, declined to speak specifically about the Merkel case. But he noted that “in our intelligence relationship with countries like France and Germany, 90 to 95 percent of our activity is cooperative and sharing, and a small proportion is about gaining intelligence we can’t obtain in other ways.”

He said he had little patience for the complaints of foreign leaders. “If any foreign leader is talking on a cellphone or communicating on unclassified email, what the U.S. might learn is the least of their problems.”

Elsewhere in the article are quotes from Peter Schaar, the German federal data protection commissioner. He makes clear the attitude of those like Dennis Blair is what is angering Germany, because the NSA has broken U.S. promises to follow German law when operating in Germany.

Also of interest in the article is that Senator Feinstein and the administration are not exactly on the same page:

Disclosure of the White House’s proposed action came after the release on Monday afternoon of Ms. Feinstein’s statement, in which she asserted that the White House had told her it would cease all intelligence collection in friendly countries. That statement, senior administration officials said, was “not accurate,” but they acknowledged that they had already made unspecified changes in surveillance policy and planned further changes, particularly in the monitoring of government leaders.

The administration will reserve the right to continue collecting intelligence in friendly countries that pertains to criminal activity, potential terrorist threats and the proliferation of unconventional weapons, according to several officials. It also appeared to be leaving itself room in the case of a foreign leader of an ally who turned hostile or whose actions posed a threat to the United States.

The crossed wires between the White House and Ms. Feinstein were an indication of how the furor over the N.S.A.'s methods is testing even the administration’s staunchest defenders.

Aides said the senator’s six-paragraph statement reflected exasperation at the agency for failing to keep the Intelligence Committee fully apprised of such politically delicate operations as eavesdropping on the conversations of friendly foreign leaders.

“She believes the committee was not adequately briefed on the details of these programs, and she’s frustrated,” said a committee staff member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “In her mind, there were salient omissions.”

The review that Ms. Feinstein announced would be “a major undertaking,” the staff member said.

Overall, Feinstein seems quite willing to show anger at NSA about this, while the Obama administration curiously still does not seem to want to project a "heads will roll" attitude on this even while entertaining a law against continuing to do it.

Didnt attach such importance,

Anonymous pp — Mon, 28 Oct 2013 06:30:41 +0000

In reply to I'm amazed that you attach

Didnt attach such importance, thanks, but then again, i'm not the one surprised by obama's lack of people skills 5 years later.

PS - I don't take Stewart as gospel either - just used an example that folks might remember. Perhaps Obama's attempted joke wasn't dickish and Stewart was having a bad day.

Obama will have to do a great

rmrd0000 — Sun, 27 Oct 2013 20:54:30 +0000

In reply to None of us here have any

Obama will have to do a great deal of fence mending because surveillance was not ended. If he were an extrovert, the complaints would be that he was a fraud hiding an evil personality. Clinton would have caught heat and Bush would have caught heat.

Even if Snowden leaks include information on the activities of foreign governments spying on US citizens, the US has to apologize and demonstrate that the surveillance on European citizens has ended.

There would be a personality analysis of any President who was at the wheel when the NSA abuse was discovered. I think a characteristic of the offending President is found and used as a part of the reason foreign leaders were upset.

Perhaps... Or her experience

Peter Schwartz — Sun, 27 Oct 2013 20:50:22 +0000

In reply to People are not the same.

Perhaps...

Or her experience with the brutality of East Germany might endow her with a certain cynicism as regards what friends and enemies do.

In any event, as the head of a country, I would think she'd be savier about how countries treat other countries.

And then there are all the other "shocked" heads of state...

People are not the same.

ocean-kat — Sun, 27 Oct 2013 20:40:07 +0000

In reply to In this day and age, I tend

People are not the same. "They" aren't just like "us." There are historical experiences and cultural differences between countries that led to differences in views and policies. A large portion of Germany's population lived under the Stazi and privacy rights are much more important to them than they seems to be here. I haven't lived in Germany but the consensus I've taken away from my reading is that Germany has some of the most comprehensive and strict privacy rights of any country. Merkel grew up in East Germany under communism and its secret police so its likely that her outrage is real.

In this day and age, I tend

Peter Schwartz — Sun, 27 Oct 2013 20:22:51 +0000

In reply to Obama left increasingly isolated as anger builds among key US allies

In this day and age, I tend to think that the problem for Merkel is more that the spying was made public. AFAIK, everyone is spying on everyone else without regard to their being allies...assuming they have the capability. For all we know, Germany is spying on the US and tapping Obama's phone calls.

I assume that all these leaders assume or know they are being spied upon. But of course once it's made public, they have to act shocked and outraged. This became a big deal around Israel spying on the U.S. Since no one is a perfect ally, it behooves other imperfect allies to spy on everyone, enemies, frenemies, and friends alike.

A little hard to see how this helps Snowden's cause, however. Unless his goal is to undo ALL snooping.

I'm amazed that you attach

ocean-kat — Sun, 27 Oct 2013 19:33:45 +0000

In reply to I'm a bit amazed by that -

I'm amazed that you attach importance to an off hand throw away comment during a fierce no holds barred fight for the nomination. "You're likable enough" meant nothing to me.

In case you didn't realize, Jon Stewart is a comedian. As he stated many times his main goal is to make people laugh. At times his satire is spot on. At other times he uses all the comedic tricks, exaggeration, caricature, shock, etc. He's also not always right even when he's doing "straight" satire.

None of us here have any

ocean-kat — Sun, 27 Oct 2013 18:42:06 +0000

In reply to Here is the standoff-ish guy

None of us here have any personal experience with Obama so how can we know. We have to read journalists and attempt to gain info from these biased sources. Yet the story of Obama standoffishness is so well know and common that it crosses the political spectrum. Left, right, and centrist journalist all report his lack of relationships with dems and republicans in congress, and now, foreign leaders. The story you're disputing here is not just one journalist nor some right wing crusade.

Here is the standoff-ish guy

rmrd0000 — Sun, 27 Oct 2013 15:14:13 +0000

In reply to I disagree, I think they

Here is the standoff-ish guy at Sandy Hook. A prior post noted how Obama and Hollander were getting along well before these revelations. I'm not buying the characterization of Obama by the journalist.

Obama should have ended the surveillance,