The database of metadata that the N.S.A. has compiled from the phone records of American citizens, Ryan Lizza says, “is probably the most controversial program that’s been disclosed” by Edward Snowden. Now, though, there are revelations that have raised international concerns about the N.S.A.’s surveillance work: that it monitored the phones of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the leaders of other allies. “It’s spied on some of its allies more than others,” Steve Coll says. “And the French and the Germans have been in that category since the Cold War.” On this week’s Political Scene podcast, Lizza and Coll talk with host Dorothy Wickenden about the ongoing N.S.A. spying scandal.

This type of dragnet surveillance from the N.S.A. isn’t new, Coll tells us. Still, we can hope for the practices to change. “What the Snowden revelations have allowed Congress and, to some extent, the American people—though we still don’t know the details—to do for the first time is to scrutinize the checks and balances that we were assured were adequate to protect privacy and to maintain a balance between privacy and security. We’ll see whether out of this comes a new politics for legislation that would establish a more balanced system.”

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Above: National Security Agency Director Gen. Keith Alexander. Photograph by Evan Vucci/AP.