According to Der Spiegel, the NSA may have tapped German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone for more than 10 years. I’m not surprised by this nor am I particularly upset. This is what intelligence agencies do and, contrary to their public protests, foreign intelligence services do the exact same thing to other world leaders.

The U.S. National Security Agency may have bugged German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone for more than 10 years, according to a news report Saturday by the German weekly Der Spiegel.

Der Spiegel also cited a source in Ms. Merkel’s office saying U.S. President Barack Obama apologized to the German leader when she called him this past Wednesday to seek clarification on the issue.

I found this quote particularly misleading:

Former CIA deputy director Michael Morrell said in a television interview to be broadcast Sunday that Snowden’s leaks are “the most serious compromise of classified information in the history of the U.S. intelligence community.”

Bullshit. Morrell thinks Edward Snowden has done more damage than the John Walker spy ring? Than CIA traitor Aldrich Ames? Than Robert Hanssen? For decades, Walker gave crypto codes to the Soviets, exposing every one of our nuclear ballistic submarines and much, much more. Ames sold out all of our highest Soviet intelligence agents, who were subsequently executed. Hanssen’s betrayal led to multiple double-agents to be executed as well as protecting Soviet spies in the CIA and FBI. So far Snowden’s leak has produced no deaths but only a great deal of embarrassment for the U.S. Government. In effect, Snowden’s revelations merely confirmed what most everyone already suspected.

Morrell needs to cut the hyperbole. It’s an insult to the fine men and women of the intelligence community who paid the ultimate price from the treason of Walker, Ames, Hanssen, and other actual traitors to compare what they did to what Snowden did. Not even close.

via Report: US May Have Bugged Merkel Phone for More than a Decade.