Recently, the European Union has sent delegates to Washington to discuss reports that the NSA has been recording phone calls from multiple allied countries such as Germany’s president and citizens from France and Spain. Concerns over the spying are raised from the other nations’ concerns that their privacy is being violated. The White House has attempted to pin the blame on the NSA for acting without governmental oversight; however, the director of national intelligence James Clapper and the director of the NSA General Keith Alexander both claim that the White House knew of the NSA’s intelligence gathering actions. Furthermore, Alexander stated that the NSA received the phone calls of French and Spanish citizens from the intelligence organizations of those respective countries as part of intelligence sharing operations. Regardless, the Senate is holding hearings over the extent to which the NSA can monitor US citizens or allied nations.