On radio this morning, Glenn reacted to the allegations that America, via the NSA, is spying not only on our enemies but on our allies as well. It now appears some countries have taken issue with U.S. surveillance techniques and are calling for a U.N. resolution to scale back NSA spying capabilities to protect ”privacy of citizens in their home states under their own home legislation.”
“I just want to go through a few stories here quickly. One is the NSA monitoring the calls of the 35 world leaders. Anybody watching the news on this? Anybody see how this is being reported? How is this being spun,” Glenn asked. “From what I read, from what I'm seeing, nobody seems to care. We’re all are saying, ‘Don't you think that we should all spy on, you know, world leaders?’ No, I don't think she should spy on our allies. ‘This is what happens, this is what we do.’ No. Not on our allies.”
While Stu disagreed with Glenn that the media is spinning the latest revelations about the U.S. governments spying tactics as no big deal, the Obama Administration’s stance seems to be that our surveillance is okay because everybody else is doing it.
European Union leaders on Friday vowed to maintain a strong trans-Atlantic partnership despite their anger over allegations of widespread U.S. spying on its allies. Some countries though are reportedly pushing for a U.N. resolution for new surveillance rules to be agreed upon with the U.S. by the end of the year.
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On Thursday’s opening day of the summit, the spying issue united the 28 EU leaders in criticizing the snooping on Thursday’s after allegations surfaced that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had one of her mobile phones tapped by U.S. services.
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The White House may soon face other irked heads of state and government. The Guardian, a British newspaper, said it obtained a confidential memo suggesting the NSA was able to monitor 35 world leaders’ communications in 2006.
The memo said the NSA encouraged senior officials at the White House, Pentagon and other agencies to share their contacts so the spy agency could add foreign leaders’ phone numbers to its surveillance systems, the report said.
“Why does no one care that… Brazil cancelled an official state meeting with our President over this. England, Merkel, all of them lining up against us. We don't care about that,” Glenn said. “And we don't care that the NSA is spying on us. The rest of the world cares more about us spying on them than we care about us spying on us.”
There are a lot of angles one could examine when looking at the this story, but perhaps the most dire is the fact that U.S. influence is so meek at the moment, our allies have no problem coming out against us.
“Here's what I think this story is about. The United States of America is so weak that the world is turning on her. The United States of America is so out-of-control and perceived now by our enemies and our allies as so weak and so untrustworthy and so lost, that Saudi Arabia can say we're making new deals with China. And China can say we're making new deals with Saudi because we're now the largest oil consumer in the world. And Saudi Arabia can now threaten the United States of America,” Glenn said. “Our allies are taking about going into the United Nations and putting sanctions on the United States of America. Our allies! This story is about many things, but I think the most critical part of this story is the state of the nation, the state of the union. It is in a very, very bad state.”
Front page image courtesy of the AP