Page 15 - Intelligence Activity News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

You don't stop terrorists in europe by listening in on angela merkel's cell phone. the rewards of spying on friendly heads of government are probably outweighed by the risks. and most troubling, it's not clear that many of these specific activities were clearly thought through and directed by the white house. nor do they appear to have been vetted by congress. in the wake of 9/11, america got scared and dropped any sense of constraints on its intelligence activities. it is not an accident that the eavesdropping on chancellor merkel began in 2002. the fact that technology now allows the nsa to ...

Responding to all of this? >> well, miguelle, there's some degree of remorse coming from the administration and i want to play for you a comment from jen sa , the spokeswoman for the state department. here's what she had to say. >> it's no secret over the last few months a series -- these unauthorized disclosures of classified information have, of course, led to criticisms of our intelligence activity by many of our friends and partners. it's created significant challenges in our relationships with some of our partners and has been a public distraction as you saw over the last couple days. >> ...

So you get all of the pain and none of the gain, in effect. >> interesting cost/benefit analysis there. this is in 2006, this document, as you point out. during the previous administration, george w. bush. do we have any indication of whether or not this continued under president obama? >> well, as you know and you mentioned germany being one of these countries, clearly it was on this list, and this -- set up this very awkward phone call between president obama and angela merkel yesterday, where, in that phone call according to the white house, the president was able to say we are not now list...

Did not specify that they had never done this in the past, and the white house has been pressed on this a number of times and as far as jay carney has been willing to go is to say we are not going to comment publicly on every specified alleged intelligence activity. of course, more difficult when you have so many of them. >> it's causing enormous diplomatic headaches for the united states. >> no question. today, you already have the german chancellor, the american ambassador summoned. you had the german defense minister saying there must be consequences for the relationship and you have angela...

General petraeus had coming into this. where he knew as this whole thing was going to unfold, two things he was very concerned about, one was his family and the impact on them, and also wh what then would be the impact on the agency and the impact on the country. i think he did, and general petraeus i think is a hero for so many young troopers. i think he did the right and honorable thing. but the key question come still comes down to, if an investigation was done and there were no criminal activities attached to this, at what point does this continue to rise up the chain of command? i think t...