Officials Claim Obama Unaware of Foreign Spying Program Until Revealed in the Press, WSJ Reports

Following an internal review, U.S. officials announced on Sunday that they were ending a National Security Agency program which netted the communications of German Chancellor Angela Merkel as well as a number of other world leaders. According to the Wall Street Journal‘s reporting on Sunday night, President Barack Obama was not aware of the scale of the spying programs until they were uncovered in the press.

NSA officials revealed that their surveillance programs monitored the phone communications of 35 world leaders. This review marks the first public acknowledgement of the spying programs by American officials. Merkel’s government joins several global administrations that publicly condemned American surveillance practices.

The White House announced last week that they would unilaterally suspend the surveillance programs which captured the foreign communications of a series of foreign heads of state. Administration officials have suggested the president was not aware of the scope of the spying programs over the course of his five years in office prior to recent revelations about the NSA’s methods.

“These decisions are made at NSA,” a senior U.S. official told WSJ. “The president doesn’t sign off on this stuff.”

“It could not be learned Sunday how many of the eavesdropping operations were stopped, or who is on the list of leaders still under surveillance,” WSJ reported.

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[Photo via AP]

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