Angela Merkel
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Angela Merkel was the chancellor of Germany whose mobile phone the NSA was intercepting, a revelation John Kiriakou counts among the multiple occasions on which the scale of American signals intelligence has been exposed since 2013.

"That's big news," he says. "She was one of our closest allies." When the interception was first revealed, Hillary Clinton went to Germany and apologised, "and then we did it again."

Kiriakou uses the episode to draw a distinction he says the American public makes and the law does not. Spying on foreign leaders, even allied ones, is broadly popular: at the very least it reveals what a government intends in trade negotiations, at the very most it might disrupt an attack. "The American people love it and they want more of it." Domestic surveillance is a different matter, "that is very specifically illegal. These intelligence services are not allowed to spy on Americans, and they do it anyway."

See also

- NSA
- Edward Snowden
- Hillary Clinton
- John Kiriakou
