Spying on leaders is okay, right?

The hot water keeps getting hotter for the US intelligence community. They have gone on the defensive about their recent actions to track world leaders.

U.S. intelligence officials on Tuesday defended surveillance of other countries’ leaders, saying such efforts are common practice across the world’s intelligence agencies.

Surveillance efforts focused on learning the plans of other national leaders have long been part of U.S. and other countries’ spying efforts, James Clapper, U.S. director of national intelligence, said in response to a lawmaker’s question regarding press reports about U.S. spying on the telephone conversations of other countries’ leaders.