leadership up to and including your president, your prime minister, whatever. that doesn't mean your top leadership is always fully briefed on details. that's not something most of them have interest in. they're interested in facts, not how you get them. >> a close relationship it has to be said an particularly merkel. do you think there's an element here of providing some level of plausible deniability? don't tell him so he can say he didn't know? >> i think that's possible. i think the reality is to talk about the german example because it's so prevalent in the media right now, the handy gate thing, without getting into details of what may or may not have been done, germany is heavily dependent on the united states and britain for its intelligence particularly in counter-terrorism and counter security because it underinvested for so long. the reality is nsa information has save the quite a lot of german lives since the 9/11 attacks which were staged out of