Spying on Allies

Best of Today: It's not the Cold War any more:

Former CIA officer Michael Scheuer:

"What do they say, the second oldest profession... If you read about America's entry into World War I and World War II, the British were collecting intelligence against us and before those of those wars and using it to press our public to support entry into the two great wars.

I'm not saying that with any animosity, that's what nation states do, but I think in this day and age we probably shouldn't be so shocked. Everybody listens to everybody now...

[The French will mind] There'll be a big brouhaha about it... If you just sit back and look at them, we went, what, from 14 NATO members to 28. I'm very sure we want to keep an eye on what the Bulgarians and the East Europeans are doing viz-a-viz the Russians. It's just a very different world and a very different set of requirements...

[It coming via Wikileaks isn't a particularly good thing,] I suspect the French probably knew we were listening and now they've got to go through the act and there'll be some cold period between us and them over it."