The National Security Agency stepped up monitoring of cellphones in Yemen and penetrated computer networks to intercept electronic messages.
A Harris Poll released last month found that 63percentt of Americans favored the monitoring of Internet discussions and chat rooms (32percentt were opposed), and 54 percent said they favored expanded monitoring of cellphones and e-mail.
WASHINGTON — The angry protests from Germany's chancellor over the National Security Agency's monitoring of her cellphone and France's furor over the collection of data about millions of its citizens have obscured a new reality: The digital age has merely expanded the ability of nations to do to one another what they have done for centuries.
Two days after Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany telephoned President Obama to complain about the monitoring of her cellphone by the United States, she joined fellow European leaders at a summit meeting in Brussels last week in agreeing not to rush into a new data privacy law, perhaps putting it off until 2015, after elections next May for a new European Parliament.
One E.U. lawmaker said the fresh accusations about the monitoring of Merkel's cellphone would tip any lingering resistance to taking stronger action against the United States.
Der Spiegel said on its Web site Wednesday that the German intelligence agencies had, after a review of the magazine's technical data, deemed its information on the monitoring of Merkel's cellphone "over years" plausible enough to confront the U.S. government about it.
Now, many here hope that the city could eventually become home to Snowden himself, who has a one-year visa in Russia but met with German lawmaker Hans-Christian Stroebele in Moscow this month about the possibility of assisting a German investigation into the alleged U.S. monitoring of Chancellor Angela Merkel's cellphone.
But protests from business executives, who told Mr. Obama last week at a White House meeting that they feared the N.S.A. revelations would lead to billions of dollars in lost business in Europe and Asia — and angry responses to the revelations that the United States was monitoring the cellphone of Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany — have forced a rethinking inside the White House.
The guidelines do not refer specifically to Mr. Berger or his case, but they emphasize careful monitoring of researchers, prohibit cellphones, hand-held computers and other electronic devices in classified research rooms, and limit the volume and type of material that researchers may review.
Those affected included several high-profile figures, like Angela Merkel, the German chancellor; American intelligence agencies were suspected of monitoring her cellphone conversations.
