United States allies are outraged over spying allegations and have demanded the eavesdropping stop, but U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said on Tuesday that foreign allies regularly conduct espionage activities against American leaders and intelligence services, Reuters reported.
In a response to a series of questions during a hearing before the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, Clapper said spying on foreign leaders was a basic tenet of intelligence operations.
Director of the National Security Agency, Army Gen. Keith Alexander, agreed with Clapper and defended the NSA; declaring his staff brings home more U.S. soldiers, Airmen and Marines alive from dangerous postings, adding they are the ones connecting the dots for the CIA and FBI when it comes to threats against the U.S., according to Reuters.
The NSA has been in the center of messy spying accusations, with European allies stating the U.S. monitored phone calls of leaders and phone transactions of millions of Europeans, Reuters reported. The NSA denied allegations on Sunday that President Barack Obama was told by Alexander that German Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone was being tapped and allowed it to continue.
Alexander and Clapper spoke together and held firm their belief that what the NSA has been doing is lawful, adding they do not spy on Americans or innocent civilians of any country, Reuters reported.
"Every nation collects foreign intelligence," Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, Mike Rogers said during the hearing. "That is not unique to the United States, what is unique to the United States is our level of oversight, our commitment to privacy protections, and our checks and balances on intelligence collection."
According to Reuters, due to the disclosures about top secret spying programs being revealed to U.S. allies by Edward Snowden, who is living in Russia where the U.S. cannot arrest him, the White House has acknowledged that the surveillance might have gone too far, and will now conduct a review of all intelligence programs.
"It's just raising really big doubts, uncertainties and question marks about not only the president's leadership but whether the United States is a reliable ally," Heather Conley, director of the European Program at the Center for Strategic International Studies told Reuters.
