PRISM

[Lamplighter]

NY Times
By ALISON SMALE and DAVID E. SANGER
11/12/13

Spying Scandal Alters U.S. Ties With Allies and Raises Talk of Policy Shift

BERLIN — Just as European and American negotiators resumed work
on a groundbreaking trade accord meant to tie their two continents closer together,
René Obermann, the chief executive of Deutsche Telekom, the German telecommunications giant,
told a cybersecurity conference in Germany on Monday that his company was
working to keep electronic message traffic from “unnecessarily” crossing the Atlantic,
where it could fall into the hands of the National Security Agency.

Other German executives, and some politicians, are beginning to talk of segmenting the Internet,
so that they are not reliant on large American firms that by contract or court order allow
United States intelligence agencies to delve into their data about phone and Internet usage.

Europeans are demanding that any new trade accord include data-privacy protections
that the United States is eager to avoid. Almost never before has a spying scandal
— in this case the revelation of the monitoring of the cellphone of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany —
resulted in such a concrete, commercial backlash.

Now it is also driving a debate inside the American government about whether the United States,
which has long spied on allies even while nurturing them as partners, may have to change its approach.

<snip>