Immediate comments debunking litany-like claims by President Barack Obama about aim and scope of overall inoffensive NSA’s mass surveillance, made in carefully staged public speeches such as yesterday’s State of the Union Address, by those who have access to Edward Snowden’s leaks has two major effects, (i) instantly indicating Obama’s dishonesty (as part of what is known as ‘plausible deniability’) and, on the long run, (ii) preventing him from continuing placating NSA’s misdeeds.

NSA is indeed not primarily engaged in fighting terrorists when spying. Another example for completely different motivation, after tapping of Angela Merkel’s mobile phone which has led to considerable discord between Germany and the US (and, by the way, the UK), is monitoring the communications of other governments ahead of and during the December 2009 United Nations Climate Summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, which has (yet) nothing to do with terrorism. Well, “spying may have contributed to the Americans getting their way in the negotiations” and ultimately put the world’s climate at further risk.

Is it worth to defent boundless spying and risk benevolence of strong allies?

See the leaked (by Snowden) NSA document here.