[00:00.10]From VOA Learning English, this is In the News.
[00:09.28]European officials have traveled to Washington seeking more information about American spying programs.
[00:19.09]On Tuesday, the director of the National Security Agency, Army General Keith Alexander, defended the NSA at a hearing in Congress.
[00:31.65]He denied accusations that the NSA collected the records of millions of French and Spanish telephone calls.
[00:41.89]"Those screenshots that show, or at least lead people to believe that we,
[00:48.18]NSA, or the United States, collected that information is false.
[00:53.51]And it's false that it was collected on European citizens.
[00:57.88]It was neither."
[00:59.78]The accusations follow information leaks by Edward Snowden,
[01:04.90]the former NSA contract worker who has been given asylum in Russia.
[01:11.51]General Alexander said the agency has received targeted information from phone calls by some Europeans,
[01:20.51]through NATO allies.
[01:22.33]"The sources of the metadata include data legally collected by NSA under its various authorities,
[01:28.90]as well as data provided to NSA by foreign partners.
[01:36.17]To be perfectly clear, this is not information that we collected on European citizens."
[01:42.94]Metadata would include details about a call, but not the contents of the call.
[01:47.36]But earlier reports said intelligence officials listened to the calls of as many as 35 world leaders,
[01:59.10] including German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
[02:02.48]The European Parliament sent a delegation to Washington to express anger.
[02:09.45]The delegation met with members of Congress and government officials.
[02:15.02]Parliament member Jan Philipp Albrecht told VOA that the spying on Chancellor Merkel was simply too much.
[02:25.38]"Now people are really concerned.
[02:26.82]They see that it's not any longer connected to a terrorist threat,
[02:31.57]because Angela Merkel is not a terrorist, or not part of a terrorist ring.
[02:34.93]And they think that there was a red line crossed, which is now spying on everybody about everything."
[02:44.68]Mr. Albrecht called for American legislation to balance national security needs with the responsibility to protect basic civil rights.
[02:56.35]On Tuesday, American lawmakers held a hearing on possible changes to NSA spying programs.
[03:05.28]Mike Rogers is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
[03:10.24]He says it is overly simplistic to think that other countries do not operate their own spying programs.
[03:19.14]But another Republican Party lawmaker, Senator Susan Collins, took a different position.
[03:26.63]In her words, "Friends do not spy on friends."
[03:31.84]Later in the week, the Washington Post reported that the NSA secretly broke into the communication networks of Google and Yahoo.
[03:42.72]Both Internet companies said they have not approved the reported actions involving their communication links.
[03:51.24]General Alexander has said his agency does not enter Google and Yahoo servers.
[03:58.14]He said the NSA gains access to data by "court order."
[04:03.59]Paul Tiao formerly served as an adviser to the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
[04:11.53]He says all the publicity has made the NSA's job harder.
[04:16.59]"NSA is facing significant challenges, both in terms of its public reputation,
[04:21.31]the level of trust that the public has in NSA, and then also policy issues,
[04:28.96]legislation that's pending that the new NSA director is going to have to deal with.
[04:33.59]That could change the nature of NSA's authority with respect to its intelligence collection mission."
[04:37.74]Obama administration officials have promised to examine the NSA's programs.
[04:43.85]White House Press Secretary Jay Carney says the review will be completed by the end of the year.
[04:51.40]And that's In the News from VOA Learning English.
[04:56.35]I'm Kelly Jean Kelly.