

Barack Obama 'approved tapping Angela Merkel's phone 3 years ago' - thex86
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/10407282/Barack-Obama-approved-tapping-Angela-Merkels-phone-3-years-ago.html

======
MikeTaylor
It so desperately disappointing when a man who was elected largely for his
understanding and respect for the constitution turns out to have been
systematically dumping over it for the last few years. Like so many people, I
expected better of Obama. He's not the man I thought he was.

~~~
mudetroit
FWIW, spying on the leader of a foreign nation is not in anyway dumping on the
constitution. Not going to make commentary on other programs, those are a
completely different matter, but spying on the leaders of other nations,
allies or not, is not illegal nor should it be surprising.

~~~
MysticFear
but spying on all Americans is dumping on the constitution.. as well as
assassinating American citizens without any court order/trial
([http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/world/middleeast/07yemen.h...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/world/middleeast/07yemen.html)).

EDIT: another source [http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57585798/who-were-
the-4-...](http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57585798/who-were-
the-4-u.s-citizens-killed-in-drone-strikes/)

------
acqq
And then one year later Obama, the Nobel prize for peace winner, gave the
'freedom medal' to Merkel praising her:

[http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-
office/2011/06/07/remark...](http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-
office/2011/06/07/remarks-president-obama-and-chancellor-merkel-exchange-
toasts)

"Told by the communists that she couldn’t pursue her love of languages, she
excelled as a physicist. Asked to spy for the secret police, she refused."

------
spoiledtechie
This just shows he is willing to lie to get his way. Again can't be trusted.
He told Merkel that if he knew, he would have stopped it. That's the smoking
gun. Proves he lied.

[http://weaselzippers.us/2013/10/26/breaking-report-obama-
lie...](http://weaselzippers.us/2013/10/26/breaking-report-obama-lied-to-
angela-merkel-he-personally-ordered-the-bugging-of-her-phone/)

~~~
jonknee
So long as both of the anonymously sourced stories are true... We don't know
what Obama said and we don't know what Obama approved. For that matter, we
don't know what the NSA actually did. It's safe to say that the NSA has been
using their "required to fight terrorism" programs for non-terrorism spying,
but beyond that everything is murky.

~~~
001sky
_The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not
authorized to disclose internal discussions_

Thats from the NYT article explaining how his AG lied to the SCOTUS until the
snowden leaks forced his hand. Seems like a bit of a pattern. Multiple
reporters, multiple countries, multiple public figures. The common thread is
blatant lying with a straight face? I dunno...

~~~
jonknee
Or from the WSJ this morning (hardly a defender of the Obama administration):

[http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405270230447050...](http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304470504579162110180138036)

Obama Unaware as U.S. Spied on World Leaders

> The National Security Agency ended a program used to spy on German
> Chancellor Angela Merkel and a number of other world leaders after an
> internal Obama administration review started this summer revealed to the
> White House the existence of the operation, U.S. officials said.

...

> The White House cut off some monitoring programs after learning of them,
> including the one tracking Ms. Merkel and some other world leaders, a senior
> U.S. official said. Other programs have been slated for termination but
> haven't been phased out completely yet, officials said.

> The account suggests President Barack Obama went nearly five years without
> knowing his own spies were bugging the phones of world leaders. Officials
> said the NSA has so many eavesdropping operations under way that it wouldn't
> have been practical to brief him on all of them.

~~~
001sky
Good ol' plausible deniability. What is interesting, is that this is the exact
same construct and "excuse" for lying as in the case I noted above. In both
instances, the senior executives claim to be caught unawares.

~~~
001sky
I suppose cracks in the facade may be starting to show...

 _WASHINGTON — The White House and State Department signed off on surveillance
targeting phone conversations of friendly foreign leaders, current and former
U.S. intelligence officials said Monday, pushing back against assertions that
President Obama and his aides were unaware of the high-level eavesdropping.

Professional staff members at the National Security Agency and other U.S.
intelligence agencies are angry, these officials say, believing the president
has cast them adrift as he tries to distance himself from the disclosures by
former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that have strained ties with close
allies._

[http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-spying-
phones-20131029,0,...](http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-spying-
phones-20131029,0,3235295.story)

------
Bsharp
The only good thing about the mess that is Obama's presidency is that people
might finally learn that it generally doesn't matter who you elect, most
presidents and politicians will act similarly. Politicians tell the country
what they think >50% of them want to hear, then do whatever they want in
office. While the things Obama and his administration (and Bush's!) have been
doing are awful, I've enjoyed watching the public outcry. Hopefully it lasts.

~~~
return0
> whatever they want in office

are you sure it's what _they_ want?

------
cmdkeen
It isn't like the world didn't have any interest in German policy 3 years ago.
Not when Angela Merkel was deciding whether to continue with bailing out
Greece, create massive changes in EU fiscal policy or otherwise use Germany's
new found place as the dominant EU player for other ends.

Quite why Germany's intelligence services let her use "an old Nokia" is beyond
me anyway - it isn't just vulnerable to the NSA spying on her, it's vulnerable
to all sorts of people, let alone states, spying on her.

All this talk on here of the need for digital security, random people talking
of needing to deniably encrypt hard drives and not being able to trust Lavabit
and the German authorities couldn't, or didn't try, to persuade their elected
leader to use something more than an old phone.

~~~
Xylakant
The "old nokia" she used is actually a party (as in political party :) mobile.
The reason for owning and using that mobile is simple: Most of the people
Angela Merkel communicates with do not own a secure mobile that's encryption
capable.

------
msandford
This probably isn't the change his supporters had hoped for.

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r3m6
Most people expect and accept "007-style" spying for security purposes. But
exactly what kind of threat are Germany, France and Brasil to the US? The
general suspicion in these countries is that the main motive behind the
overzealous NSA activities is state sponsored industrial espionage, which is
completely unacceptable.

------
skj
I didn't see mention of evidence.

------
r3m6
If you want to understand why Merkel - and people from all political leanings
- are so upset, just watch "The Lives of Others" \-
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3_iLOp6IhM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3_iLOp6IhM)

------
return0
Wow, who could have thought she was a terrorist. Good disguise.

You know what would be funny? Tapping the Nobel Peace prize committee.

------
Kiro
How can NSA tap something in Germany?

~~~
Xylakant
can as in "is technically and organizationally capable"? Fairly simple,
especially when we're talking about the government and mobile phones. The US
Embassy is about 200 meters from the Reichstag, just at the edge of the area
where most of the government is located, just as the British Embassy. The
Brits have a radome on the roof [1] and the Americans are reported to have
hidden equipment behind fake walls [2][3]. Sufficiently sensitive equipment
should give them a good reception on what most mobiles in that area do.
Otherwise see the hack on belgacom: Root the provider and you have the mobile.
Not all of that is legal, but I'm not certain under which law the Radome on
the embassy is illegal.

[1]
[http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&where1=Wilhelmstra%C3%9Fe%2071...](http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&where1=Wilhelmstra%C3%9Fe%2071,%2010117%20Berlin&form=LMLTSN&cp=52.51566162514916~13.380592854080874&lvl=19.456198038832422&sty=b&encType=1#Y3A9c3JrYmdiajNmamIwJmx2bD0xOS40NiZkaXI9MzQwLjQ1JnN0eT1iJnE9V2lsaGVsbXN0cmElMjVDMyUyNTlGZSUyNTIwNzElMjUyQyUyNTIwMTAxMTclMjUyMEJlcmxpbg==)
[2] Infrared picture of the American Embassy that claims to be an indicator
[http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/bild-930301-561363.htm...](http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/bild-930301-561363.html)
[3] [http://www.duncancampbell.org/embassy-
bugging](http://www.duncancampbell.org/embassy-bugging)

------
vaadu
Nixon reborn.

------
001sky
wow. just yesterday they tried to pin it on Bush.

~~~
gjm11
The article makes, or at least reports, the following claims about the tapping
of Merkel's phone: (1) it began in 2002 (when, yes, GWB was in office), (2)
Obama was told about it in 2010, and (3) at that time he approved it and
allowed it to continue.

If all this is true, then it seems to me it's perfectly fair to "pin it on
Bush" _and_ to blame Obama for the fact that it continued past 2010.

It also seems worth remarking (a) that actual evidence for the claims seems to
be in short supply, and (b) that if they're correct it's pretty weird that
Obama wasn't told until 2010 that the NSA was tapping the phone of the leader
of a major foreign nation allied with the US.

~~~
rhizome
Yes, "they both suck" is a reasonable conclusion.

