Barack Obama 'approved tapping Angela Merkel's phone 3 years ago' (opens in new tab)

Politicians are only true to their "roots" when they're in opposition. Once in power that all quickly goes out the window for "expedience" to "solve" the problems we currently face, and to not let the opposition get in a word edgewise.

Pay attention and you'll see that people from both parties do it consistently. Once you recognize that the only reasonable conclusion to come to is that you can't vote republican or democrat since either will betray you once they've gotten your vote and are in office.

FWIW, spying on the leader of a foreign nation is not in anyway dumping on the constitution. Not going to make commentary on other programs, those are a completely different matter, but spying on the leaders of other nations, allies or not, is not illegal nor should it be surprising.

Almost all politicians are carbon copies of one another. Until we vote out every single incumbent, and refuse to replace them with like-minded cronies, we can expect more of the same.

So long as both of the anonymously sourced stories are true... We don't know what Obama said and we don't know what Obama approved. For that matter, we don't know what the NSA actually did. It's safe to say that the NSA has been using their "required to fight terrorism" programs for non-terrorism spying, but beyond that everything is murky.

> whatever they want in office

are you sure it's what they want?

The "old nokia" she used is actually a party (as in political party :) mobile. The reason for owning and using that mobile is simple: Most of the people Angela Merkel communicates with do not own a secure mobile that's encryption capable.

can as in "is technically and organizationally capable"? Fairly simple, especially when we're talking about the government and mobile phones. The US Embassy is about 200 meters from the Reichstag, just at the edge of the area where most of the government is located, just as the British Embassy. The Brits have a radome on the roof [1] and the Americans are reported to have hidden equipment behind fake walls [2][3]. Sufficiently sensitive equipment should give them a good reception on what most mobiles in that area do. Otherwise see the hack on belgacom: Root the provider and you have the mobile. Not all of that is legal, but I'm not certain under which law the Radome on the embassy is illegal.

[1] http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&where1=Wilhelmstra%C3%9Fe%2071... [2] Infrared picture of the American Embassy that claims to be an indicator http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/bild-930301-561363.htm... [3] http://www.duncancampbell.org/embassy-bugging

That is what Germany wants to know.

The article makes, or at least reports, the following claims about the tapping of Merkel's phone: (1) it began in 2002 (when, yes, GWB was in office), (2) Obama was told about it in 2010, and (3) at that time he approved it and allowed it to continue.

If all this is true, then it seems to me it's perfectly fair to "pin it on Bush" and to blame Obama for the fact that it continued past 2010.

It also seems worth remarking (a) that actual evidence for the claims seems to be in short supply, and (b) that if they're correct it's pretty weird that Obama wasn't told until 2010 that the NSA was tapping the phone of the leader of a major foreign nation allied with the US.