The NSA And The State Dept. Go To War … With Each Other
” New revelations that the U.S. has been eavesdropping on world leaders like German Chancellor Angela Merkel aren’t simply straining Washington’s relationship with Berlin. They’re also sparking an increasingly public fight between the State Department and the NSA, with the nation’s spies and the nation’s diplomats trading shots about who’s responsible for the mess.
“This is a pretty serious embarrassment for the U.S., and as top officials try to protect their agencies and their reputations, they are not sticking with their talking points,” a former senior U.S. official told The Cable.
Secretary of State John Kerry touched off the furor when he said some of the NSA’s overseas surveillance efforts — which also included tapping into tens of millions of calls in France and Spain — had been carried out without the Obama administration’s knowledge or explicit approval. The remarks highlighted what appears to the White House’s emerging strategy for dealing with widespread public fury over the programs: blame it on the NSA.”
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DIA Sending Hundreds More Spies Overseas
” The Pentagon will send hundreds of additional spies overseas as part of an ambitious plan to assemble an espionage network that rivals the CIA in size, U.S. officials said.The project is aimed at transforming the Defense Intelligence Agency, which has been dominated for the past decade by the demands of two wars, into a spy service focused on emerging threats and more closely aligned with the CIA and elite military commando units. “
