"Obama Left Increasingly Isolated as Anger Builds Among Key U.S. Allies."-The Guardian.

The furious call that German chancellor Angela Merkel made to the White House on Wednesday to ask if her phone had been tapped was the latest in a string of diplomatic rebukes by allies including France, Brazil and Mexico, all of which have distanced themselves from the US following revelations of spying by the National Security Agency.
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"The [NSA] revelations have clearly caused tension in our relationships with some countries and we are dealing with that through diplomatic channels," said White House spokesman Jay Carney on Thursday.
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...[T]he Guardian has spoken with several diplomats and foreign government officials – all of whom agreed to talk only on the condition of anonymity – who say the White House is still underestimating the anger felt over recent disclosures. They argue that US officials are being deliberately disingenuous when they claim that all countries engage in similar forms of espionage, even against allies. While it is widely accepted that the US, Britain, France, Russia and China engage in counter-espionage, other countries do not have the tools to conduct surveillance on the scale of the NSA.

A European diplomat said that the White House had presented a false comparison by claiming all countries were engaged in the same tactics.

"How would the US respond if it discovered a friendly country was covertly listening to the calls of thousands of US citizens – including Obama?" the diplomat said.

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Speaking before Wednesday's revelation about Merkel's phone, a senior western diplomat speculated that the tenor of debate would be transformed if it emerged that an elected European politician had been targeted – as occurred in Brazil and Mexico.

"If that happened, there would be a huge uproar," the diplomat said. "This is not an issue that will go away.

"The surveillance debate in the US is focused on the constitution – and whether the privacy of US citizens is compromised. There seems to be minimal acknowledgement about the concern other countries have about the rights of their citizens."