How NSA Surveillance Jeopardizes Obama’s G-8 Trip to Europe

President Obama's task in Europe this week -- already daunting as the death toll in Syria mounts and the pressure for a more assertive U.S. policy there grows -- has been made even more challenging by the recent disclosures of American surveillance in allied countries.

The President arrives in Northern Ireland to begin an intense three days of behind-the-scenes diplomacy and very-public speechmaking to culminate in what the White House hopes is a spectacular address at the eastern side of the historic Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. The crowd for that could top 200,000. But more important for President Obama may be the smaller one-on-one sessions when he is expected to face tough questions about the surveillance disclosures and the evolving U.S. policy on Syria. President Obama is almost certain to hear complaints from several of the allied leaders upset at public disclosure that the FBI and National Security Agency collected data on private calls made by citizens, including those using major internet servers in Europe. Since the disclosure, the complaints have been loudest in Germany, France and Italy. But a nerve was struck across the continent, with Europe long more concerned about privacy than the United States and long annoyed that Europeans had to rely on Internet servers maintained by U.S. companies such as Google and Facebook.