The Mayberry Machiavellis didn't like the German Chancellor being against the war in Iraq.
What to do?
Spy on him!
US intelligence agencies began monitoring the mobile phone of the German chancellor more than 10 years ago when Gerhard Schröder was leader, according to German media.
The Social Democrat chancellor was put under surveillance from around 2002, according to research by newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and TV network NDR, reportedly because of his government's opposition to military intervention in Iraq.
Last October the current chancellor, Angela Merkel, accused the National Security Agency of tapping her phone and was later given assurances by the US president, Barack Obama, that the US "is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of Chancellor Merkel".