By Wiretapping Its Allies, the US Betrays Them

It has been made public that the National Security Agency (NSA), the communication surveillance agency of the U.S. government, has bugged German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone over a period of more than 10 years.

In response to the news of the alleged eavesdropping, Chancellor Merkel asked for an explanation from U.S. President Obama. The president responded by saying that “the United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the chancellor,” but he did not directly deny that Merkel’s communications had been monitored in the past.

Former U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee Edward Snowden, currently taking refuge in Russia, exposed various covert operations being carried out by the NSA. A British newspaper also recently reported that, based on information from Snowden, it is believed that the NSA has been intercepting the phone calls of the leaders of 35 different countries.

As a country that advocates democracy and individual freedom, it is disappointing that the United States would be involved in such acts. It is natural for the affected countries to be angry. These countries want an explanation of what the U.S. aims to accomplish by examining personal phone calls and emails.

Earlier this year, the fact that the NSA had been collecting massive amounts of U.S. citizens’ personal information was exposed, and since then this has become a serious issue. In April, President Obama responded to criticism by expressing determination to begin reform and saying, “We need to regain the trust of the American people.”

According to the whistle-blowing document, in one month nearly 100 billion phone calls were being intercepted. The U.S. government attempted to rationalize this by claiming that the process was grounded in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and was a legitimate method of information gathering under the supervision of the Special Intelligence Committee of Congress. However, considering the enormous amount of information being gathered, it seems like it would be impossible to supervise such an operation thoroughly.

A point of concern is that President Obama was not informed about the phone tapping of foreign leaders. Assuming that this is true, it means that the NSA is wiretapping without the consent of the president or Congress. In this system where information collection is carried out whenever it is deemed necessary, the possibility that the situation could get out of control cannot be denied.

Information collection by the NSA was intensified in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The U.S. government claims to have been able to prevent terrorism in many of its allied countries by providing them with information collected by the NSA. However, it is still unable to explain the wiretapping of the leaders of friendly nations.

In Japan, a special bill for the protection of confidential information provided by the U.S. was submitted to the National Diet. However, if the information sent by the U.S. is gathered using methods that betray the trust of its allies, doesn’t this bill imply that Japan supports such methods? There will be many problems with the bill if it is unclear on that point.

To regain the trust of the world, the United States needs to continue to review the current state of things and begin to make changes.