Merkel: US spying has shattered allies' trust

A German parliamentary committee that oversees the country's intelligence service met to discuss the spying allegations. Its head, Thomas Oppermann, recalled previous reports to the panel that U.S. authorities had denied violating German interests, and said, “we were apparently deceived by the American side.”


Meanwhile, two Western diplomats told The Associated Press that U.S. officials have briefed them on documents obtained by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden that might expose their respective countries' levels of intelligence cooperation with the U.S.

The diplomats said the briefings came from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The Washington Post said some of the documents Snowden took contain sensitive material about collection programs against adversaries including Iran, Russia and China. The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the intelligence briefings publicly.

Moulson reported from Berlin. Associated Press writers Raf Casert and Juergen Baetz in Brussels, David Rising in Berlin, Cassandra Vinograd in London and Josh Lederman and Kimberly Dozier in Washington contributed to this report.