It's Not Easy to Stop Spying on Allies
The U.S. must reassure Europeans without compromising its interests
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Outrage over U.S. wiretapping of Angela Merkel’s cell phone has inspired two proposals worth considering. One is that the U.S. should quit spying on allied leaders. The second, floated by the German chancellor herself, is to add her country to the no-mutual-spying, intelligence-sharing pact that the U.S. has had with its closest Anglophone allies since 1946.
Both of these ideas have the virtue of going beyond the inadequate response, “Everybody spies.” However, neither would be as easy to carry out as they might sound.