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Anger In Germany Over U.S. Spying

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An image from the German film, "The Lives of Others," about life in Communist East Germany, where the state spied extensively on citizens. Revelations of U.S. spying in Germany have a personal resonance for many Germans who lived under communism. (Sony Picture Classics)
An image from the German film, "The Lives of Others," about life in Communist East Germany, where the state spied extensively on citizens. Revelations of U.S. spying in Germany have a personal resonance for many Germans who lived under communism. (Sony Picture Classics)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly placed an angry call to President Obama after revelations that the U.S. may have been monitoring her cell phone.

The story was first published in the German news magazine Der Spiegel. It's the latest fallout from the documents revealed by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

Earlier this week, the French newspaper Le Monde published a report, also based on Snowden's documents, showing that the NSA monitored over 70 million telephone calls and texts in France in less than a month, and spied on French public officials and business leaders.

That came along with stories that the U.S. had spied on both the previous and current Mexican Presidents.

Last month, stories in Brazilian papers said that the U.S. had spied on the country's president, Dilma Rousseff, and the state-owned oil company Petrobras.

President Rousseff postponed a state visit to the U.S. because of those revelations.

German headlines today called the spying, "Serious," "Scandalous," "A Slap In the Face."

A parliamentary committee is holding a special meeting over the reports and the American ambassador was summoned by the government for an explanation, an extremely rare move between close allies.

German Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere told ARD, Germany’s leading state television channel, "If this is true, what we hear, then that would be really bad ... It can't work like this ... We can't simply go back to business as usual."

But Merkel is also being criticized at home because she stood by President Obama in June and agreed that U.S. spying operations had helped foil terrorist plots.

She maintained that support through the summer, even as there were more and more revelations of the extent of U.S. spying on European citizens.

The issue has a personal resonance for her and for many Germans who lived under communism.

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This segment aired on October 24, 2013.

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