being spied on, that many so cell phone conversations were being listened to? , of course, it s possible. the president is a very busy guy who doesn t normally worry about intelligence collection details. that said, certainly a lot of staff at the national security council i think had to be aware. i think part of the challenge here is we re hearing part of the debate. reality is, there s a great deal of espionage in europe. only a small portion is conducted by the united states. the members of the europeanian union spend a lot more effort spying on each other than nsa does on any of them. who s the client? where it s one dimensional. this is a specific question regarding merkel and other foreign leaders. had who is this intelligence intended for if the commander in chief is kept in the dark about tapping the cell phones of foreign allies? well, certainly all intelligence goes to feed decision making in every country. your top military civilian