The Snowden avalanche continues, as we increasingly see that the real damage is to the reputation of the US and not to its immediate security.
The latest installment is the German reaction to the US bugging of Angela Merkel's phone. http://www.theguardian.com/...
The furore over the scale of American mass surveillance revealed by Edward Snowden shifted to an incendiary new level on Wednesday evening when Angela Merkel of Germany called Barack Obama to demand explanations over reports that the US National Security Agency was monitoring her mobile phone.
Merkel was said by informed sources in Germany to be "livid" over the reports and convinced, on the basis of a German intelligence investigation, that the reports were utterly substantiated.
It does not take an English major to parse the lies/untruths/spin.
See if you have learned how to spot the lies:
http://online.wsj.com/...
Mr. Obama assured Ms. Merkel in the call that the U.S. "is not monitoring and will not monitor" her communications. "The United States greatly values our close cooperation with Germany on a broad range of shared security challenges," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
So we have past tense, present tense and future tense .... and in the denial Obama uses only present and future tenses. The obvious conclusion ....
Why does Clapper still have a job? Why does Holder still have a job? Why has Obama allowed this surveillance overreach? Where is the outrage (except overseas)?
This kind of conduct by the US is over the line ... to go along with recent French, Brazilian, .... revelations. It will ultimately affect US security ... because this is not the way to win friends and influence people.