Intel chief: US spies on allies, they do it, too

WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing lawmakers who suggested U.S. surveillance has gone too far, the national intelligence director on Tuesday defended spying on foreign allies as necessary and said such scrutiny of America’s friends — and vice versa — is commonplace.

Another top intelligence official said the collection of phone records that prompted outrage across the Atlantic actually was conducted with the help of European governments. News reports that the National Security Agency had swept up millions of phone records in France, Spain and elsewhere were inaccurate and reflected a misunderstanding of “metadata” that was in fact collected by NATO allies and shared with the United States, the director of the NSA told a congressional hearing.