White House OK’ed spying on allies, US intelligence officials say

The White House and State Department signed off on surveillance targeting phone conversations of friendly foreign leaders, current and former US intelligence officials said, pushing back against assertions that President Obama and his aides were unaware of the high-level eavesdropping.

Professional staff members at the National Security Agency and other US intelligence agencies are angry, these officials say, believing the President has cast them adrift as he tries to distance himself from the disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that have strained ties with close allies. The resistance emerged as the White House said it would curtail foreign intelligence collection in some cases and two senior US senators called for investigations of the practice.