France is not happy that the NSA has spied on their last three presidents. New York Times.

French President Francois Hollande. New York Times/AFP/Getty

France is upset with the United States after discovering that the NSA spied on their last three presidents and dozens of other high ranking officials. New York Times. The revelations were printed by French website Mediapart and the Liberation newspaper and appears to have come from Edward Snowden's NSA data and was provided by Wikileaks. French President Francois Hollande called a meeting with his defense ministers and released a statement saying that the spying was unacceptable. This is the second time the NSA leaks have shown that the U.S. government was spying on a close ally. In 2013 the NSA was accused on spying on German Prime Minister Angela Merkal. The White House claims that the United States does not currently spy on the leaders of France, but did not say if it had happened in the past. France has summoned the American ambassador to answer for the spying. 

My Comment:

Once again the NSA has been caught spying on a very close ally. How close are we to the French? Though they did not help us invade Iraq in 2003, they were always a major partner in the war in Afghanistan. and they are currently helping us in our war against ISIS. Though we have had our disagreements in the past, France has always been an ally and a friend. I personally have held the French in higher esteem then many of my countrymen. 

It seems most of the information that was taken was largely about mundane issues, it is alarming that they were able to get such high level information. These were very  high level meetings and they talked about issues that were very important to France, including the EU economic crisis and the Middle East peace talks. I can't imagine that the French didn't try to protect their phone calls but the NSA was still able to intercept these meetings. The stupid part is that I am guessing the United States could have gotten most of the information just by talking to France. 

I should point out that some level of espionage is to be expected, even among allies. Spying is nothing new and this kind of thing will always be around. But there is a difference between regular espionage and what the NSA was doing. They were monitoring everything the French Presidents were doing and listening into their private conversations. I could see doing that to an enemy, but to your ally? Seems very counterproductive, especially if the information ever comes out, which it did. 

Will anything change though? My guess is that Obama is lying and that the U.S. government is still spying on France. The temptation is huge. If you have the technology to know everything about everyone then it is very hard to resist spying on them. After all, even though France and the United States are allies, they also compete with each other politically and economically. France is also a hugely important factor on the world stage and a major partner in the war against terrorism. It pays to know what they think. The edge you can get from knowing what people are thinking can't be understated.

The downside is that you piss everyone off when you spy this hard. France is going to have a very hard time trusting us after this and they are probably revamping their security systems as I type this. Though I don't think there will be any lasting consequences from this, I do think that people will remember for a long time that the United States betrayed the trust of the French government and the people of France. 

For me though, the idea that the NSA is spying on regular people and collecting data from almost everyone is far more disturbing then a diplomatic row with France. After all, being a politician comes with certain risks. Getting spied on by foreign governments is a pretty standard one. It's not a standard risk for normal civilians though. At least it shouldn't be, but as long as the NSA has the power to collect meta-data from American citizens, the risk is there. Though there have been some recent reforms, the fact is that the NSA can still spy on pretty much everyone. It doesn't matter if you are the President of France or just a normal person, the NSA has your data...