Obama to Allies: Don't We All Spy on Each Other?

President Barack Obama has come under fire after more U.S. eavesdropping claims, but Obama says it should hardly be surprising that governments are spying on each other. Obama has even promised the U.S. will provide its allies with the information about new reports thatthe National Security Agency bugged European Union offices in Brussels, Washington and New York.

The latest revelations were partially attributed to information supplied by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The U.S. has held "high-level" discussions with Russians to get Snowden out of the Moscow airport and back to the United States so he can face criminal charges, according to Obama.

Just last week, Obama had tried to downplay Snowden's importance.

"Im not going to have one case suddenly being elevated to the point where I have to do wheeling and dealing and trading.Im not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker," said Obama.

Obama then tried to reassure European leaders that he would go directly to them and rely on personal relationships, not spying, to see what the leaders had on their minds.

"I'm the end user of this kind of intelligence," he said. "And if I want to know what Chancellor Merkel is thinking, I will call Chancellor Merkel. If I want to know what President Hollande is thinking on a particular issue, I'll call President Hollande. And if I want to know what, you know, David Cameron's thinking, I call David Cameron. Ultimately, you know, we work so closely together that there's almost no information that's not shared between our various countries," said Obama.

The president's remarks came shortly after Hollande demanded on Monday that the United States immediately stop any eavesdropping on European Union diplomats.European officials from Germany, Italy, France, Luxembourg and the EU government itself all say the revelations could possibly damage negotiations on a trans-Atlantic trade treaty between the EU and the United States.