Does intelligence capability means the National Security Agency will
continue to spy on allied governments, but has ceased its snooping on
the personal communications of certain heads of state, Obama said during a Jan. 17 speech about policy changes made in the wake of Edward Snowden’s leaks.Whether Hollande and Prime Minister David Cameron, along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, feel more secure while conversing on their private cellphones since Obama announced his changes is unclear, considering the NSA still snoops on the aides, dignitaries and perhaps the close friends who may be on the other end.
Hollande who was in Washington, with Obama at the one hour long press conference -- leaving behind a messy private life before this state visit to the United States -- insisted the flap over America’s intelligence gathering in France was “in the past,” smoothed over, he said, after the two men “clarified things.”
With a quip that he’s a parent to four children (among whom he, too, could never play favorites), Hollande said the point, after ironing things out, was that the two countries “endeavored towards cooperation.”
“Mutual trust has been restored,” he said in French, “and that mutual trust must be based on respect for each other's country, but also based on protection -- protection of private life, of personal data, the fact that any individual, in spite of technological progress, can be sure that he's not being spied on. These are principles that unite us.”
Obama let Hollande’s remarks hang in the air, calling next on National Public Radio for a question about the embattled Affordable Care Act and the latest implementation fixes issued Monday. I
In the space of a second, Obama pivoted from tamping down international contretemps to ironing wrinkles in a signature domestic achievement. That quickly, the larger challenges of his second term were there.
“This was an example of, administratively, us making sure that we're smoothing out this transition,” he said of the effort to give employers more time to adjust to the health law. “There are going to be circumstances in which people are trying to do the right thing, and it may take a little bit of time.”
Note EU-Digest: as the children rhyme goes:" I see England, I see France. I see someone’s underpants". It seems to be business as usual.
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