One could understand the NSA’s propensity to listen to the conversations of those foreign leaders who wish us ill...

Is Obama a dupe or a totalitarian, megalomaniacal liar?

By Andrew P. Napolitano

When German Chancellor Angela Merkel celebrated the opening of the new U.S. Embassy in Berlin in 2008, she could not have imagined that she was blessing the workplace for the largest and most effective gaggle of American spies anywhere outside of the United States.

It seems straight out of a grade-B movie, but it has been happening for the past 11 years: The National Security Agency (NSA) has been using Mrs. Merkel as an instrument to spy on the president of the United States. We now know that the NSA has been listening to and recording her cellphone calls since 2002.
In 2008, when the new embassy opened, the NSA began using more sophisticated techniques that included not only listening, but also following her. Mrs. Merkel uses her cellphone more frequently than her landline, and she uses it to communicate with her husband and family members, the leadership of her political party, and her colleagues and officials in the German government.
She also uses her cellphone to speak with foreign leaders, among whom have been President George W. Bush and President Obama. Thus, the NSA — which Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama have unlawfully and unconstitutionally authorized to obtain and retain digital copies of all telephone conversations, texts and emails of everyone in the United States, as well as those of hundreds of millions of persons in Europe and Latin America — has been listening to the telephone calls of both American presidents whenever they have spoken with the chancellor.

One could understand the NSA’s propensity to listen to the conversations of those foreign leaders who wish us ill. One would expect that the agency would do so. However, the urge to listen to the leadership of our allies serves no discernible intelligence-gathering purpose.

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