“We are not going to comment publicly on every specified alleged intelligence activity,” he said.
But while the White House was staying publicly mum, Carney said the Obama administration was discussing Germany's concerns “through diplomatic channels at the highest level,” as it was with other U.S. allies worried about the alleged spying.
Obama adviser for homeland security and counterterrorism Lisa Monaco wrote in an editorial for USA Today that the U.S. government is not operating “unrestrained.”
The U.S. intelligence community has more restrictions and oversight than any other country, she wrote. “We are not listening to every phone call or reading every e-mail. Far from it.”
Monaco noted that a privacy and civil liberties oversight board is reviewing counterterrorism efforts to ensure that privacy and civil liberties are protected.
“Going forward, we will continue to gather the information we need to keep ourselves and our allies safe, while giving even greater focus to ensuring that we are balancing our security needs with the privacy concerns all people share,” she wrote.
In the past, much of the official outrage in Europe about revelations of U.S. communications intercepts leaked by former NSA contract worker Edward Snowden seemed designed for internal political consumption in countries that readily acknowledge conducting major spying operations themselves. But there has been a new discernible vein of anger in Europe as the scale of the NSA's reported operations became known, as well as the possible targeting of a prominent leader like Merkel, presumably for inside political or economic information.
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