Arab News Editorial: America's eavesdropping campaign

http://www.arabnews.com/news/468716

Editorial: America's eavesdropping campaign
Published — Friday 25 October 2013

Even though President Barack Obama has shown himself to be something of a micro-manager, for instance sitting in on the operation that led to the killing of Osama Bin Laden in his Abbottabad hide-out, it seems almost certain that he had no idea that the US National Security Agency at Fort Meade in Maryland was listening in on the personal phone calls of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

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What causes concerns about America's snooping is that this is being done by a government and moreover is targeting citizens from friendly powers. Washington is not trying to sell us anything. Washington is not seeking to survey our lifestyles. What it is doing is monitoring us as if we were suspects in the global terrorist conspiracy. And it is monitoring millions and millions of entirely innocent people like us, one of whom happens to be the German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

When the news broke Obama put a call into Merkel. What was said has not been revealed, though doubtless the NSA has a full transcript. But it is clear that whatever explanation the president came up with, did nothing to defuse Merkel’s understandable fury. Within minutes of finishing the call, her office put out a statement in which she described the violation of her private phone calls as “totally unacceptable”.

She is entirely right. In the battle against international terror, which since 9/11, twelve years ago has claimed far fewer lives worldwide than wrecks on the US highway system in a single year, cannot be fought with such a draconian violation of the rights of ordinary people to their privacy. No argument, however well-meaning can justify what the NSA has done. Obama has some explaining to do and a whole heap of changes to make in the way US cybersnoops go about their business.