Bugging Our Allies
"There's an old Greek saying . . . The fish rots from the head first. It starts at the top." -Michael S. Dukakis
Clinton said on Tuesday that the spying scandal has hurt U.S. relations around the globe. “I do think that the stories about the data collection has had a damaging effect,” he said. 
The U.S. National Security Agency swept up 70.3 million French telephone records in a 30-day period, according to a newspaper report Monday that offered new details of the massive scope of a surveillance operation that has angered some of the country’s closest allies.
Government spying on electronic communications has outraged Internet users and now threatens to harm technology firms' ability to do business internationally, tech leaders said during a roundtable discussion.
Democrat, Liberal, Incompetence, Obama, Brilliance, Narrative, Oops
As Chancellor Merkel put it on Thursday, the two countries have better things to do than “waste energy spying” on each other. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, a close Merkel ally, said the latest espionage cases did not reflect well on the Americans. “With so much stupidity, you can only weep,” he said late Wednesday. “And that is why the chancellor is ‘not amused.’ ”
Democrat, Liberal, Obama, Narrative, Oops
In an angry exchange with Barack Obama, Angela Merkel has compared the snooping practices of the US with those of the Stasi, the ubiquitous and all-powerful secret police of the communist dictatorship in East Germany, where she grew up. Livid after learning from Der Spiegel magazine that the Americans were listening in to her personal mobile phone, Merkel confronted Obama with the accusation: "This is like the Stasi."
Democrat, Liberal, Incompetence, Obama, Narrative, Oops
A new poll by German public television (ARD) indicates that only 35 percent of Germans still see the United States. as a good partner. That figure has fallen 14 points since just this past July when about half of all Germans saw America as a partner they could trust. The new poll, done Thursday, also indicates that 61 percent of Germans now see the United States as an untrustworthy partner.
France summoned the U.S. ambassador on Monday to protest allegations in Le Monde newspaper about large-scale spying on French citizens by the U.S. National Security Agency. The allegations that the agency was collecting tens of thousands of French telephone records risked turning into a diplomatic row just as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Paris for the start of a European tour over Syria... Earlier, France's interior minister, Manuel Valls, said Le Monde's revelations that 70.3 million pieces of French telephone data were recorded by the NSA between Dec 10, 2012 and Jan 8, 2013 were "shocking."
Edward Snowden has only had a limited impact on the political debate about surveillance in the US that he wanted to ignite. Yet the self-confessed National Security Agency leaker has managed to orchestrate a very different political phenomenon: the biggest bout of anti-Americanism since the Iraq war.
Democrat, Liberal, Obama, Bigbrother, Law
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff used her position as the opening speaker at the U.N. General Assembly to accuse the United States of violating human rights and international law through espionage that included spying on her email. Rousseff had expressed her displeasure last week by calling off a high-profile state visit to the United States scheduled for October over reports that the U.S. National Security Agency had been spying on Brazil.
Democrat, Liberal, Obama, Narrative, Oops, Bigbrother
Merkel has expressed anger over the NSA’s actions and discussed the issue with President Barack Obama when he visited Berlin... “With every day it becomes clear to the United States that this is important for us,” she said at a July press conference in Berlin. “Germany is not a nation of surveillance. Germany is a nation of freedom.”
Democrat, Liberal, Obama, Narrative
Bolivia's leftist president Evo Morales on Saturday accused US intelligence of hacking into the email accounts of top Bolivian officials, saying he had shut his own account down. Latin American leaders have lashed out at Washington over recent revelations of vast surveillance programs, some of which allegedly targeted regional allies and adversaries alike.
Democrat, Liberal, Incompetence, Obama, Narrative, Oops
France's top security official publicly dressed down the United States at the American ambassador's July 4 garden party, denouncing alleged U.S. "espionage" of France and other countries, while the European Parliament voted to open an investigation.
With the US economy looking robust for the first time since the financial crisis, the US is again being seen as an over-weaning superpower that brushes aside smaller nations. “It sends chills up my spine when we learn they are spying on all of us through their intelligence services in Brazil,” said Cristina Fernández, Argentina’s president.
Democrat, Hypocrisy, Liberal, Obama, Oops, Bigbrother, War
Revelations from European leaders on Monday that the National Security Agency bugged European Union offices in Washington and hacked into its computer network bring to light hypocrisy on the part of the U.S. government. In 2011, the Pentagon released its first formal cyber strategy, which called computer hacking from other nations an "act of war," according to the Wall Street Journal.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Obama, Character, Oops, Bigbrother, Arrogance
European leaders warned on Monday that claims the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) bugged European Union (EU) offices and hacked into its computer network could derail major trade talks, as the controversy over U.S. spying snowballed... "If it is confirmed that diplomatic representations of the European Union and individual European countries have been spied upon, we will clearly say that bugging friends is unacceptable," Merkel's spokesman said. "We are no longer in the Cold War."
Democrat, Liberal, Incompetence, Obama, Oops, Arrogance
Barack Obama returned to Berlin today, almost five years to the day from when he delivered his famous "Victory Column" speech that cemented his reputation as an international rockstar. Unfortunately, his reception this time was a lot different. An estimated 200,000 people turned out in July 2008... Fast forward to 2013, and many are now saying that Obama's reputation is "tarnished," by his recent snooping scandals, his extensions of the war on terror, and the hard luck realities of failing to deliver on all your promises. And instead of opening up the speech to the whole city, Obama spoke in front only about 5,000-6,000 spectators.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Character, Narrative, Oops, Bigbrother, Arrogance
The United States taps half a billion phone calls, emails and text messages in Germany in a typical month and has classed its biggest European ally as a target similar to China, according to secret U.S. documents quoted by a German newsmagazine... News of the U.S. cyber-espionage program Prism and the British equivalent Tempora have outraged Germans, who are highly sensitive to government monitoring having lived through the Stasi secret police in the former communist East Germany and with lingering memories of the Gestapo of Hitler's Nazi regime. A Spiegel report on Saturday that the NSA had spied on European Union offices caused outrage among EU policymakers, with some even calling for a suspension to talks for a free trade agreement between Washington and the EU.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Obama, Character, Scandal, Oops, Bigbrother, Arrogance
The German news magazine Der Spiegel reported Sunday that classified leaks by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden detailed NSA bugging of European Union offices in Washington and New York, as well as an "electronic eavesdropping operation" that tapped into an EU building in Brussels. Mounting anger throughout Europe on Monday included a threat by French President Francois Hollande to halt talks with the United States on trade and other issues unless the bugging stopped.