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NSA denies Obama knew of spying on German leader

zimmer

zimmer

Educating the Ignorant
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The National Security Agency Sunday denied German media reports that President Obama was told in 2010 of NSA spying on German Chancellor Angela Merkel and allowed it to continue.


On Sunday, the German tabloid Bild am Sonntag, citing unnamed intelligence sources, reported that Obama was told by Gen. Keith Alexander, the NSA director, in 2010 that Merkel's phone was being tapped and that Obama allowed it to continue.


Another report, this time in the German magazine Der Spiegel, said the NSA first started tapping Merkel's cellphone in 2002 when she was leader of the German opposition party.

NSA denies Obama knew of spying on German leader
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I spent several hours listening to German radio, and one commentator summed it up well... it was bad news that he knew, probably worse that he didn't know.

I howled.

You know... I don't recall Bush getting any passes because he didn't know. Abu Graib comes to mind... and unlike Benghazi... nobody died at Abu Graib.

I'd lay down pretty good bets that Obama won't be giving any more speeches in Berlin.
 
zimmer said:
I spent several hours listening to German radio, and one commentator summed it up well... it was bad news that he knew, probably worse that he didn't know.

I howled.

You know... I don't recall Bush getting any passes because he didn't know. Abu Graib comes to mind... and unlike Benghazi... nobody died at Abu Graib.

I'd lay down pretty good bets that Obama won't be giving any more speeches in Berlin.
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Heya Zimmer :2wave: Check it out.....I have this up in a Thread where France and Germany are making Demands.

NSA: permission to spy in Germany.....

Germany has been under surveillance by the United States for decades, and German leaders have been fully aware of it, says historian Josef Foschepoth. The reason? Secret post-war accords.

NSA: permission to spy in Germany | Germany | DW.DE | 29.07.2013


In here.....

http://www.debatepolitics.com/inter...nd-no-spy-agreement-u-s-6.html#post1062476171
 
He was never presented with a list of the top world leaders being spied on? Really? I wonder if this is their final answer. If Obama didn't know, then he needs to fire the NSA chief immediately, and take responsibility for being an idiot. As a minimum I would expect him to be a aware of spying going on of world leaders.
 
MMC said:
Heya Zimmer :2wave: Check it out.....I have this up in a Thread where France and Germany are making Demands.

NSA: permission to spy in Germany.....

Germany has been under surveillance by the United States for decades, and German leaders have been fully aware of it, says historian Josef Foschepoth. The reason? Secret post-war accords.

NSA: permission to spy in Germany | Germany | DW.DE | 29.07.2013


In here.....

http://www.debatepolitics.com/inter...nd-no-spy-agreement-u-s-6.html#post1062476171
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Oh... I don't doubt it. Hell, I'd spy on them too... especially the space kadet Green Party, Linke Partei (Obama's Home), and the SPD. These folks are nuts.

The FDP, CSU/CDU seem to be OK, but listening into Merekl's calls would give you a good idea where they're headed, tactics, challenges etc.

The thing is... Obama said he would rectify this crap image Bush supposedly left behind. ROTFLOL... not!

Obama is distrusted and not respected in the Middle East, now Europe and by his loyal opposition in America. Bush may have been disliked by his opponents, but at least he was respected. When he said something, he meant it... unlike Bill Clinton Obama... who gives weasels a bad name.

Some foreigners hate Obama... Egyptians have no use for him... The Syria mess made him look like the idiot he is. The Saudi's don't want to have anything with president bow-wow-wow.

At home he wasn't some slick liar like this Socialist twit we have at the helm today. Couldn't be according to the Socialists because he couldn't put a full sentence together as far as they were concerned.
 
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Goodness, it has been a long time ago...but I remember an American getting busted for being a double agent from Isreal and someone on a talk show talking about most nations spend at least as much time and effort spying on their friends as they do their enemies.
 
zimmer said:
Oh... I don't doubt it. Hell, I'd spy on them too... especially the space kadet Green Party, Linke Partei (Obama's Home), and the SPD. These folks are nuts.

The FDP, CSU/CDU seem to be OK, but listening into Merekl's calls would give you a good idea where they're headed, tactics, challenges etc.

The thing is... Obama said he would rectify this crap image Bush supposedly left behind. ROTFLOL... not!

Obama is hated, distrusted and not respected in the Middle East, now Europe and by his loyal opposition in America. Bush may have been disliked by his opponents, but at least he was respected. When he said something, he meant it... unlike Bill Clinton Obama... who gives weasels a bad name.

At home he wasn't some slick liar like this Socialist twit we have at the helm today. Couldn't be according to the Socialists because he couldn't put a full sentence together as far as they were concerned.
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This was more of it..... Even France and the Brits were spying on Germany since 55. All Allied Forces.....

Obama: Hey, I didn’t know about spying 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.

Officials said the internal review turned up NSA monitoring of some 35 world leaders, in the U.S. government’s first public acknowledgment that it tapped the phones of world leaders. European leaders have joined international outrage over revelations of U.S. surveillance of Ms. Merkel’s phone and of NSA’s monitoring of telephone call data in France.

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......

Is that what “US officials” want us to think? Let’s pose a couple of basic questions. First, who would bug the head of government of a US ally without having the highest possible level of authorization? That would tend to be a career-ender if it got exposed, especially in the manner in which it did get exposed. Say, has anyone been fired for it? Er … not so far.

Second, who exactly would be the customer of this data, once collected? Here’s a hint: It’s not going to be the undersecretary of agricultural development at the USDA. The only reason to surveil Angela Merkel is to provide real-time intelligence to the highest level of government about the intentions of the German Chancellor. Furthermore, that intelligence would have to be specified as to its source for the policymaker to validate it for its consideration. If that policymaker is not Barack Obama, then perhaps we should be asking who exactly is making decisions at the top level of government.....snip~

Obama: Hey, I didn’t know about spying on world leaders! « Hot Air
 
Obama knows NOTHING!!! He is the Sgt Schultz of American presidents...
 
VanceMack said:
Obama knows NOTHING!!! He is the Sgt Schultz of American presidents...
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Then why did he call for the review back in the summer? Why did he apologize? Why did he stop programs?
 
MMC said:
Then why did he call for the review back in the summer? Why did he apologize? Why did he stop programs?
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Because it became public and he got caught?
 
VanceMack said:
Because it became public and he got caught?
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Merkels phone issue is recent.....plus to have both walk into his office with both knowing information has been shared about each other. Should kind of get him ticked and thinking.....how are you going to try and get over me with this issue.
 
mak2 said:
Goodness, it has been a long time ago...but I remember an American getting busted for being a double agent from Isreal and someone on a talk show talking about most nations spend at least as much time and effort spying on their friends as they do their enemies.
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They do. It's nothing new. Israel spies on us, we spy on them. Apparently the Germans and French too. Not really a surprise.

Merkel better hope that Germany's spying on us (which I don't have any proof of, but it's probably happening) isn't found out.
 
zimmer said:
I spent several hours listening to German radio, and one commentator summed it up well... it was bad news that he knew, probably worse that he didn't know.

I howled.

You know... I don't recall Bush getting any passes because he didn't know. Abu Graib comes to mind... and unlike Benghazi... nobody died at Abu Graib.

I'd lay down pretty good bets that Obama won't be giving any more speeches in Berlin.
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If these agency heads aren't keeping the commander-in-chief informed, they need to be replaced.

Obama is a bad leader if he wants this plausible denyability.

Either the agency heads, or Obama need to resign in disgrace if this is true.
 
Geeze, another scandal?
Lord of Planar said:
If these agency heads aren't keeping the commander-in-chief informed, they need to be replaced.

Obama is a bad leader if he wants this plausible denyability.

Either the agency heads, or Obama need to resign in disgrace if this is true.
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rocket88 said:
They do. It's nothing new. Israel spies on us, we spy on them. Apparently the Germans and French too. Not really a surprise.

Merkel better hope that Germany's spying on us (which I don't have any proof of, but it's probably happening) isn't found out.
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Why, she knows in the 60's they were.....course she said those were the East Germans. :lol:
 
Lord of Planar said:
If these agency heads aren't keeping the commander-in-chief informed, they need to be replaced.

Obama is a bad leader if he wants this plausible denyability.

Either the agency heads, or Obama need to resign in disgrace if this is true.
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I agree. He should have known, and if in fact he didn't, someone wasn't doing their job.

Maybe he should just pull a Reagan and say he "doesn't recall" being told.
 
Lord of Planar said:
If these agency heads aren't keeping the commander-in-chief informed, they need to be replaced.
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I agree completely. What the hell? These guys run a program that may jeopardize our relationship with a key ally - not to mention one of the five or six most important countries in the world - and they don't bother to inform the boss? Isn't that, like, borderline treason?
 
rocket88 said:
They do. It's nothing new. Israel spies on us, we spy on them.
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Oh, no, this is entirely different. Everybody understands that the CIA and its counterparts everywhere are gathering information on friend and foe. And attempts to obtain latest defense-relevant technology are also expected. "They wouldn't be doing their job".

But tapping the phone of a leader of an allied country means crossing a whole bunch of red lines. It's just not done. Or so we thought.

And what exactly was the purpose? To learn what Angela is going to say in defense of Austerity, and give tips to Paul Krugman, for a pre-emptive rebuttal in his NYT column?

(If it turns out that any kind of information had been leaked, even absolutely by accident, to the German opposition parties - can you imagine the scope of the scandal?)
 
Well even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Far righties actually have a legitimate grievance this time.

The idea that Obama didn't know that his own spy agencies were listening on on foreign leaders conversations just cannot be true.

If it is true there's two major issues here.

1) it shows that spy agencies are acting without proper authorizations, a decision like this should have been reviewed at the beginning of his presidency.

2) he hasn't been asking the right questions of his national security team.

I'm not even upset the US has done it, makes sense that they would, it doesn't come as any kind of shock or surprise to me that it happened.

But this idea that the president didn't know I think is ludicrous, and it's a desperate and pathetic attempt to save face.

It's the same thing with torture, right wingers tried to say "it wasn't torture" well it was!

And I wouldn't be as upset about it if you were to just come out and say

"We will use torture as a weapon to defend this country".

In the same way you just admit that

"We will spy on you to further the interests of this country".

No worries.

Still makes you look like assholes, but ironically, honest assholes.
 
Lord of Planar said:
If these agency heads aren't keeping the commander-in-chief informed, they need to be replaced.

Obama is a bad leader if he wants this plausible denyability.

Either the agency heads, or Obama need to resign in disgrace if this is true.
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Surely you have seen the 'trend'...
 
Obama is the last to find out about anything. I really love the piece Jon Stewart made on him.

 
Cyrylek said:
Oh, no, this is entirely different. Everybody understands that the CIA and its counterparts everywhere are gathering information on friend and foe. And attempts to obtain latest defense-relevant technology are also expected. "They wouldn't be doing their job".

But tapping the phone of a leader of an allied country means crossing a whole bunch of red lines. It's just not done. Or so we thought.

And what exactly was the purpose? To learn what Angela is going to say in defense of Austerity, and give tips to Paul Krugman, for a pre-emptive rebuttal in his NYT column?

(If it turns out that any kind of information had been leaked, even absolutely by accident, to the German opposition parties - can you imagine the scope of the scandal?)
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It's a different kind of situation, but the similarity between this and Iran-Contra are there. Both Presidents denied knowledge of something that they should have known about. Which tells me that either both were lying, or that the government is beyond the control of the President.
 
rocket88 said:
tells me that either both were lying, or that the government is beyond the control of the President.
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Or both. I mean, if you realize that something you are supposed to control is beyond your control, what are your options?

More or less, lie or resign.

All the philosophical and political disagreements apart, if Barack Obama will choose to resign within the next few months or years (hopefully, after replacing a certain certifiable idiot as his automatic replacement), I pledge to send a hundred-dollar bouquet of flowers to the Obamas' house every year, for the rest of my life.
 
VanceMack said:
Obama knows NOTHING!!! He is the Sgt Schultz of American presidents...
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O knows Marx.
O knows Lenin.
O know Wright.
O knows Ayers.
O knows Rezko.
O knows Alinsky.
O knows Prevaricating.

He's been well trained.

You know?
 
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