US spy chief Clapper defends Prism and phone surveillance

[Malcolm Pryce]

I must say I find the outrage rather surprising (although of course totally understandable). In the aftermath of the Princess Diana affair it emerged that the US security services had transcripts of her mobile phone calls. Which meant that even back then they were monitoring the phones of the Royals, and thus it must have been obvious that they were also routinely bugging the phones of Western leaders. Looking back, it is surprising how generally muted the response was to the revelation that Lady Di's calls were being bugged. (Or did I miss it?) How come there was so little fuss made about it? Or did we perhaps assume she was somehow a special case, and they wouldn't dream of bugging anyone else?