NSA, Your Tax Dollars At Work

The Whistleblower Edward Snowden came across a Bush era NSA memo to its staff in 2006 that encouraged them to have their "Customers" (White House, State Dept, etc,) pass along any phone numbers of important people so the NSA could tap their phones, as reported in The Guardian.

In addition to snooping on world leaders, the NSA has intercepted phone calls around the world seemingly at random, collecting lots of juicy personal details, but doing nothing to stop terrorism.

But the memo acknowledges that eavesdropping on the numbers had produced "little reportable intelligence". In the wake of the Merkel row, the US is facing growing international criticism that any intelligence benefit from spying on friendly governments is far outweighed by the potential diplomatic damage.

The memo then asks analysts to think about any customers they currently serve who might similarly be happy to turn over details of their contacts.
"This success leads S2 [signals intelligence] to wonder if there are NSA liaisons whose supported customers may be willing to share their 'Rolodexes' or phone lists with NSA as potential sources of intelligence," it states. "S2 welcomes such information!"

They've managed to piss off everybody in Brazil, France and Germany, among others.  Putin isn't too thrilled either, but hey, he's Russian so I guess he doesn't count.