U.S. spy agency's defense: Europeans did it too  WASHINGTON Wed
Oct 30, 2013 7:53pm EDT  U.S. General Keith Alexander, director
of the National Security Agency, testifies at a House
Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington,
October 29, 2013. REUTERS/Jason Reed   Credit: Reuters/Jason
Reed  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The political uproar over alleged
U.S. eavesdropping on close European allies has produced an
unusual defense from the National Security Agency: NSA says it
was the Europeans themselves who did the spying, and then handed
data to the Americans.         Metadata refers to information
about a phone call or email - the length of a call and the
number dialed, for example - that does not include the
communication's actual content.           But it is unclear
whether that represents a blanket ban.                  Comments
(23) TheNewWorld wrote: No other country in the world has the
infrastructure to do what the NSA does. They may be able to tap
phones and hack accounts, I am sure they