Yes, valuable private thoughts are to black mail any Politician, it can be the US or a foreign to bend them to follow a particular policy whether one likes it or not. But things still went wrong Chechnya, Georgia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq Libya and now Yemen,Iran and Syria.

As for the information gathered, it is useful and valuable to know the private thoughts of foreign leaders to determine what limits may be encountered on extending US power across the globe. It may take months of listening to put the whole picture together on what a foreign head of state thinks and believes.

Knowing their weaknesses and character flaws is also useful to depose unfriendly foreign heads of state, to frustrate their ambitions, and to reveal their secrets to their voters. It is part of the game played by the ultra-rich and their paid political servants.

France, Spain, Germany, Italy, the entire UN membership, can expect the NSA to continue spying on them. If they can illegally wiretap America, why not the world? Who can stop them?