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By Adam Entous And Danny Yadron
President Barack Obama's decision two years ago to limit the National Security Agency's spying on certain allied
heads of state didn't sit well with some advisers, who worried that critical pieces of information could be missed,
according to current and former U.S. officials.
Stung by disclosures in 2013 about the scope of the spy agency's operations and under diplomatic pressure to
respond, Mr. Obama settled on a revamped system. Certain allies, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French
President François Hollande, were added to a so-called protected list, making their communications off-limits to
the NSA. As a workaround, however, the White House authorized the NSA to target the communications of a select group of
those leaders' top advisers.
A Wall Street Journal article published Tuesday revealed how the U.S.'s spying regime devised after the 2013
revelations of NSA contractor Edward Snowden prohibited eavesdropping on some world leaders but allowed the NSA to
target others, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In the case of Ms. Merkel, U.S. intelligence veterans feared losing access to her private communications with
Russian President Vladimir Putin. They also questioned the wisdom of the move, especially given their belief that the
intelligence agencies of many close U.S. allies, including Germany's BND federal intelligence service, spy on the White
House.
At the time, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper warned about the dangers of tying the intelligence
community's hands. He warned that the administration was asking for what he termed "immaculate collection," meaning they
wanted the information without getting their hands dirty, according to officials.
Top Israeli officials, in response, on Wednesday said the country could file a formal protest with the White House.
Yisrael Katz, Israel's intelligence and transport minister, said if the spying claims were found to be true, Israel
would demand the U.S. immediately cease surveillance.
Spokesmen for Mr. Netanyahu and Israel's foreign ministry declined to comment on whether Israel would lodge a
formal protest. Current and former U.S. officials have long singled out Israel as an ally that spies aggressively on the
U.S., a charge the Israelis deny.
Along with capturing the communications of Israeli officials, the spying swept up details about their lobbying
campaign in Congress, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the intercepts.
The chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Rep. Devin Nunes (R., Calif.), said Wednesday
his panel was looking into allegations contained in the Journal article and said the committee had requested additional
information from the intelligence agencies "to determine which, if any, of these allegations are true, and whether the [
intelligence agencies] followed all applicable laws, rules, and procedures."
The Journal article quoted administration and intelligence officials saying the NSA followed rules that required
their intelligence reports to remove names of any Americans, including lawmakers.
Sen. Richard Burr (R., N.C.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a statement his
panel would "continue to conduct vigorous oversight of intelligence community activities to ensure that they are lawful
and appropriate, and that all policies and procedures are followed."
The NSA started eavesdropping on the communications of friendly heads of state long before Mr. Obama came to office
in 2009.
The spy agency zeroed in on Ms. Merkel's predecessor, Gerhard Schröder, when he was chancellor around 2002 in
response to his government's opposition to then-President George W. Bush's plans to invade Iraq, former U.S. officials
say.
When Ms. Merkel took over in Germany, there was little hand-wringing about whether to target her. "The machinery
was in place. The machinery never stops," a former Bush administration official said.
The Bush administration wanted to better understand Ms. Merkel's position on international negotiations designed to
curtail Iran's nuclear program, former officials said. In particular, the Bush White House wanted to know if German
firms, including Siemens AG, the country's largest engineering company, were pressing Ms. Merkel to protect access to
the Iranian market.
When the scope of the surveillance became apparent in 2013, including the agency's targeting of Ms. Merkel's
cellphone, the chancellor reacted with indignation. "Eavesdropping among friends is never acceptable," she said.
Under the new regime that emerged, once a leader was added to the protected list, spying on his or her direct
communications was off limits. Restarting monitoring required a consensus among the White House National Security
Council, the intelligence services and other government agencies, according to current and former officials.
At the urging of his intelligence advisers, Mr. Obama agreed to keep in place around the world eavesdropping
implants--the specific tools that enabled some of the eavesdropping--including in countries where leaders'
communications were protected.
Mr. Obama decided instead to remove so-called selectors, which are the email addresses and phone numbers of NSA
targets. Officials said such a move would allow Mr. Obama and his successors to easily adjust the list of targets.
The most protracted debate during the 2013-14 review of targeting allies was over Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the leader
of Turkey. The administration agreed by consensus that he shouldn't be included on the protected list because of long-
standing U.S. concerns about his policies, particularly with regard to militant groups fighting in neighboring Syria,
according to current and former officials.
The exclusion of Mr. Erdogan and other allied leaders from the protected list didn't mean their communications were
actively monitored by the NSA, the officials said. Rather, the NSA was directed to maintain its ability to monitor their
communications, allowing top officials to have discretion to go "up or down" on them with little notice and no
interagency review.
When discussions turned to spying directly on Ms. Merkel's communications, not everyone was comfortable with making
a change. Since that time, the Obama administration's appetite for information about Ms. Merkel's thinking has grown,
including on matters such as Russia's intervention in Ukraine.
The NSA has also long struggled to monitor Mr. Putin, which is why U.S. intelligence officials wanted to retain
access to Ms. Merkel's communications.
Ms. Merkel's protests about the NSA's snooping raised hackles among U.S. intelligence officials because they
believed the Germans were attempting to spy on the White House.
On one occasion, before the Snowden revelations, the BND inadvertently showed the NSA a target list meant for
German eyes only, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials. On it, they said, were BND "selectors"
for senior officials at the White House.
The BND and a German government spokesman declined to comment. In Germany, where spy agencies are often seen with
suspicion because of the country's Nazi and Communist past, the BND was under fire this year for allegedly helping the
NSA spy on other European allies.
Rory Jones
, Ruth Bender and Siobhan Hughes contributed to this article.
Write to Adam Entous at adam.entous@wsj.com and Danny Yadron at danny.yadron@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
12-30-151916ET
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