Is the President taking the heat for something he doesn't know?

President Barrack Obama

President Barrack Hussein Obama took a huge blow from foreign leaders over rumors that the National Security Agency (NSA) had been spying or monitoring their communication, including cellphones and email communications. The president had a talk with the leader of Germany Angela Merkel and assured her no one was monitoring her cellphone. It is understood that the leader of Germany and Brazil - both women - are working on a UN Resolution to ban spying on foreign leaders. That resolution is a direct attempt to stop NSA from spying with people of other country but even if such resolution took effects, it will have little effect on the US since UN resolutions can't constrain a nation from pursuing its national security interest. But there are few things that people should look at before making judgement about the president.

First of all, the leaker of the information - Snowden - who is now hiding out in Russia, a state known for spying and attacking its own people, had been releasing comments to the press that are either fabricated, exaggerated, or all lies, and may perhaps be TRUE. There's no way to independently verifying these claims other than the fact that the man who leaked these claims used to work for NSA and because of that, he had been given so much credibility by his host and many anti-American regimes out there. And the truths may forever lost in the haystack of countless internet websites and blogs.
Secondly, NSA is - off course - armed with the world's most sophisticated technology many of them are used for spying on enemies and friends around the world. It is likely that the claims are right on. National intelligence community's response to the first leaked information about the NSA's dragnet of American data under the program "Prism" was all too obvious that they were lying. They didn't know what to say and they were completely caught off-guard. This led to this amazing lie by the head of National Intelligence which he recanted later but still denied he lie when he made this statement:

That was an obvious lie and it destroys the credibility of the US intelligent community. The NSA later revealed that the program does exist and that they collected American data but not monitoring them or even taking a look at them. However, there's no reason why they should collect all these data in the first place if their intention is not to look at them.
Finally, the president is taking the heat for something he doesn't know or never approved but as president he is compelled by his duty as the head of the country to take the hit. If you may recall a former intel officer during the Bush administration was interviewed about water-boarding and he made a comment that stuck with me to this day; he said, his and many other clandestine activities the government approved are always left alone to do the dirty work for the government and were never been prosecuted nor accused. This in my view is the case with President Obama. In all fairness, Obama may never knew about the NSA spying on foreign leaders communication and may genuinely apologetic about it. And that the NSA is doing it under its mandate and various congressional approval programs and their own intel programs. CNN reported that NSA denied ever revealed this spying program to president Obama but he will take the criticism because he is the president. Someone said in an interview which I think is true - that all countries in the world spied on each other, and even friends spied on each other. Just recently, a high ranking US Naval officer was caught with bundles of US intelligence documents on his way to hand them over to Israeli Mossad officers. He was locked up for life and the Israeli government - as anticipated - denied any relationship with the man. US just happened to be so good at spying on foreign leaders that they did it better than all other countries.