The White House on Monday said that some constraints are needed in U.S. surveillance practices in the wake of embarrassing revelations about the sweeping nature of U.S. spying.
The comment came a week after President Barack Obama drew heavy criticism over accusations that the National Security Agency had tapped the mobile phone of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and conducted widespread electronic snooping in France and Italy.
The White House spokesman, Jay Carney, said that with new intelligence-gathering capabilities, “We recognise there needs to be additional constraints on how we gather and use intelligence.’’
Carney’s comment, along with a tweet from National Security Adviser Susan Rice that a “proper balance” is needed, suggested some changes might be in the offing on the scale of U.S. electronic spying as part of a review of the collection activities of the National Security Agency and other U.S. intelligence agencies.
The review is to be completed by year’s end.
Obama has full confidence in the director of the National Security Agency, Keith Alexander, and other NSA officials but that there needs to be a balance between the need to gather intelligence and the need to protect the privacy of people, Carney said.
A European delegation took the concerns about the issue to Capitol Hill, where members of the European Parliament met U.S. lawmakers and spoke of the need to rebuild trust.
“Confidence is vanished,” said Elmar Brok, a German member of the European Parliament. “We have to work hard that confidence is re-established between the leaders, between our people.”
After Obama and Merkel spoke by phone, the White House said the U.S. was not currently tapping her phone and would not in the future, begging the question of whether it had been done in the past.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that the NSA ended the programme that involved Merkel after the operation was uncovered in a review that began during the summer.
The programme also involved as many as 35 other world leaders, some of whom were still being monitored, the report said.
The U.S. and many lawmakers have defended the NSA programmes as crucial to protecting U.S. national security and helping thwart militant plots.
They insist the programmes are carefully overseen by Congress and the U.S. legal system.
