It's not that spying on Merkel (she seems lovely), is in fact a profitable affair, but there are so many other instances where it would indeed be profitable. Wh

It's not that spying on Merkel (she seems lovely), is in fact a profitable affair, but there are so many other instances where it would indeed be profitable. Where do you draw the line? After the reset are the Russians off limits? After the Russo-Georgian Olympic war are the Georgians off limits? After South Sudanese independence are they off limits? Do you think any of them view us as off limits? Hell does even name-any-random-western-european-nation think we're off limits? No. I'm wholly in favor of the NSA not touching a single American email, but their job is to spy on relevant foreign targets. As long as they stick to that job (not saying they have so far, in fact I am rather uncomfortable with the earlier Snowden revelations), then yes I am OK with this. The citizen will always vote based on (US or not) (a/dis)information in the sense that every government has secrets. The key is maintaining a state where the secrets are not destructive to the underlying society that supports that given government. I am not entirely assured that the US has achieved that, however I do not think (betting man here) that we have fully failed that. Downvote if you must, but there is a not small tragedy in verbally damming the deeds of those whom we literally paid to do it in the first place (spying on Americans not included, more referring to the foreign targeting referred to in the parent article).