done by european services, not by the nsa. that it was not in fact the citizens of those countries, france and spain, but collected from a number of sources by the u.s. and nato allies in support of military operations abroad. here's how they made that case at the hearings today. >> the assertions by spain, italy, that nsa collected ten of million of phone call are completely false. to be perfectly clear, this is not information that we collected on european citizens. it represents information that we and our nato allies have collected in defense of our countries and in support of military operations. >> so in effect, they're saying that one of the strongest reasons for this anger we've been seeing from europe started with nothing. the misinterpretation, erin, of a single power point slide.