(Authors note: I blog a lot from work, especially when there is little work to be done. However today I am quite busy so am going to keep this short and block-quotey, but hopefully the comment sections can add more to the discussion)
Last week the French paper Le Monde published details of the NSA surveillance of France. As in the case of reading the Brazilian presidents emails as well as those of Mexico's, the NSA was not only intercepting French phone traffic on a 'massive scale'
Le Monde said more than 70m French phone calls had been recorded in one 30-day period late last year. Techniques included the automatic recording of conversations from certain numbers, and sweeping up text messages based on keywords
but also
that the interceptions were likely to have targeted not just those with suspected terrorist links but also people in business and politics
The French being none to pleased summoned the US Ambassador:
Earlier on Monday, the French government summoned the US ambassador in Paris, Charles Rivkin. A French official said Rivkin was met by the foreign ministry's chief of staff, who reminded the US "that these types of practices between partners are totally unacceptable, and we must be assured that they are no longer happening". The French demanded that Washington provide a full explanation "and a tangible response to our concerns as soon as possible".
Events escalated so that one President Obama had to take a break from dealing with crazy GOP wingnuts and talk to the President of France personally.
The White House conceded on Monday that revelations about how its intelligence agencies have intercepted enormous amounts of French phone traffic raised "legitimate questions for our friends and allies".
In a statement released after a phone call between Barack Obama and his counterpart, François Hollande, the White House made one of its strongest admissions yet about the diplomatic impact of the disclosures by the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
John Kerry had the opportunity to chime in as well, and well.... security.
He said: "Protecting the security of our citizens in today's world is a very complicated, very challenging task, it is an everyday 24-7, 365-day task, unfortunately, because there are lots of people out there seeking to do harm to other people." He added: "Our goal is always to try to find the right balance between protecting the security and the privacy of our citizens."