Stop Watching Us!

While Deutsche Welle and France 24 voiced their outrage, the American press didn’t mention much about the National Security Agency affair. In The New York Times, there were only single comments hidden in an “Opinion” section, in The Wall Street Journal, nothing. One had to drift away to the left to read about European reactions to the discovery of the NSA’s tapping Angela Merkel’s calls. Or drift even more away to the right, where Fox News, quoting headlines from European newspapers, triumphed that Obama had agreed to monitor the German chancellor’s calls. The fact that her cell phone has been tapped since 2002 doesn’t really matter to Fox News.

On Saturday, a wave of protests swept through Washington. The mass meeting Stop Watching Us gathered thousands of people in the U.S. capital. Libertarians and liberals found a common ground, a common topic to talk about. “Merkel is right,” read placards and T-shirts. “Spying on leaders of allied countries — just as spying on own citizens — is NOT ok!” “Stop watching us!” “Cut off Big Brother!” “Thank you, Ed Snowden.” The meeting was attended only by foreign correspondents and Gary Johnson, a Libertarian candidate in the 2012 presidential election. The U.S. media did everything to ignore the protests; Slate magazine gave only a short and factual account, and published a few pictures.

Only on Oct. 28, when Obama promised improvement to the world, did the subject of tapping stop being taboo. Congressional hearings started on Tuesday. NSA chief Keith Alexander announced that the European press reports are “complete nonsense.” Americans have never tapped Europeans, but it is European spies who were so kind to share their information with colleagues from the U.S. This is how it works — within the U.N. frameworks and in connection with other common tasks in “the areas stricken with war.” It seems to be enough for most Americans, just as it is enough for Dianne Feinstein, Senate Intelligence Committee chair, who just a few days ago harshly demanded explanations from the NSA. Oh! So everything is all right: “European newspapers simply misinterpreted the data,” she summed up. The French Le Monde and Spanish El Mundo just wrongly interpreted the information.

According to Glen Greenwald, a journalist responsible for publishing the news revealed by Edward Snowden, the NSA lies. Maybe there was some form of cooperation between American and European spy networks, but Snowden’s documents — freely available on the Web — show that the majority of those operations are purely U.S. activities.

Even though the White House denies that it had known about eavesdropping on Chancellor Merkel, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper announced that the Obama administration is well-informed about the NSA’s activities. Therefore, according to the article by Natasha Lennard for Salon, the White House was and was not kept informed at the same time. “Either we are dealing with a bunch of puppets who don’t know what their secret service is up to or with a bunch of arrogant people who don’t see any need to explain why they tap own citizens as well as citizens of foreign countries,” writes Lennard. If Obama really didn’t know what was going to happen and if the revelations will now lead to serious reforms in the NSA, he should thank Snowden in person.

The inconsistency of new information and the United States’ decreasing prestige in Europe don’t seem to bother Americans. Instead, this seems to be a good occasion to win something in civil politics. Right-wing newspapers, with the Washington Times at the head, express their surprise that it took Europeans five years to learn the hard way what kind of person Obama really is. At the same time, The Nation wonders if the NSA also taps the president, and if Americans consider Clapper a criminal and his testimonies in front of Congress lies.

Midweek, after blame was put on European countries, the topic literally disappeared from U.S. newspapers. However, it didn’t disappear from the first page of deutschewelle.de, where speculations and discussions still continue. The committee interrogating the NSA directors finished its session and we still know nothing.