Discerning Foreign Leader's Intentions Is Key Goal Of The Nation's Spying Operations---US Intelligence Chief

Director of US National Intelligence James Clapper said spying on World's leaders was a "top tenet" of US Intelligence policy. But he told the intelligence panel of House of Representatives US did not "indiscreminately" spy on nations. Mr Clapper was reacting to a growing international row reports the US eavesdropped on foreign allies. "Leadership intention is kind of a basic tenet that we collect and analyze," Mr Clapper said, adding that foreign allies spy on US officials and intelligence agencies as a matter of routine. He said that what he called the torrent of disclosure about American surveillance had been extremely damaging and that he anticipated more. But he said there was no other country that had oversight that the US had, and that any mistakes that had been made were human or techinical. It is said that if anyone was expecting apologies or embarrassment from the leaders of intelligence community they in for disappointment. Also testifying before the House Intelligence committee was National Security Agency (NSA) director General Keith Alexender, who called media reports in France, Spain and Italy that NSA gathered data on millions of telephone calls "completely false'.