Spying.....Yet

I am offended by how many of Europe's policy leaders are themselves offended at the mention of the United States spying on foreign leaders.   I am more offended that they found out.  Who didn't keep this information under wraps?  Yes, that dog gone Snowden again.  

Spying has been around.....well, I guess since humans started on this earth.  Perhaps, it was the first cave man looking at another cave's mans drawings of animals that inspired the drawing of humans.  On through history we have Mary Queen of Scots receiving poisoned garments from her cousin over in England; intercepted letters and correspondence helped Mary avoid that fate until her beheading.  Then, of course, we all know of the Nazi Germany and their spying escapades not to be outdone later by the Soviet Union. 

It amazes me that Germany is so upset by all of this spy business.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel has thrown in her rhetoric take on this through the use of sentences,"Obviously, words will not be sufficient", and "True change is necessary".


Really, Chancellor? Change is necessary? Hasn't change been the factor by which we have spied on you? Cell phones, computer hacking, GPS location systems.....is this the change you speak of? We didn't intercept your snail mail. We didn't tap the outlets in your office. We didn't put cameras in the light fixtures. Or, did we?

Chancellor, have you not heard of the Patriot Act?  Do you not know that we do this same thing within our own country? An argument that is repeated over and over again in the media lately is:  we are your allies.  I presume that in this country, our own citizens are considered allies as well.  The word ally in its most basic sense means cooperation.  Does cooperation negate the know your friends, keep your enemies closer?  Germany is not our enemy of course and it is a friend of ours in the common goal of freedom and democracy, yet, I graduated in 1989 and watched as the Berlin Wall crumbled....Take down that wall.  Yet, within the reach of my grandparent's generation, Germany has changed it appearances.  Yet, Paris has only been liberated since 1944.  Yet, Israel has only been a nation re-established since 1948.  Yet, Spain in 1978 adopted its democratic constitution. 

Winston Churchill remarked, "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on". We know that there are good people and bad people. People use information for good and for evil. We, like all nations, have been caught with our pants down and it hasn't been a pretty sight. As for spying, yet another quote from Churchill, "The Americans will always do the right thing… after they’ve exhausted all the alternatives".