Clapper Defends Europe Spying

No regrets, huh? James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, refused to apologize for the massive international spying at a House hearing on Tuesday. Instead, he insisted that the U.S. didn’t just spy “indiscriminately”—and the surveillance of foreign leaders is a key part of the nation’s spying policy. “Leadership intentions is a basic tenet of what we collect and analyze,” Clapper told the House Intelligence Committee. Clapper did admit that the public disclosure of the spying had been extremely damaging. Also testifying was National Security Agency director Keith Alexander, who said it's "simply false" that the U.S. gathered information on millions of people from France, Spain, and Germany—because that much of that information actually came from fellow Europeans.