Indignation was sharp and predictable across Europe - a continent where privacy is revered. Yet anger over revelations of US electronic surveillance has been tempered by an indisputable fact: Europe wants the information that America intelligence provides.
That dilemma has become clear, only days after leaks about two National Security Agency programmes that purportedly target foreign messages - including private e-mails, voice and other data transmissions - sent through US internet providers.
The European Union's top justice official, Viviane Reding, has sent a letter to US Attorney General Eric Holder saying the answers he gives when they meet in Dublin today could affect the transatlantic relationship.
"Programmes such as Prism and the laws on the basis of which such programmes are authorised could have grave adverse consequences for the fundamental rights of EU citizens," Reding wrote in the letter.
Chancellor Angela Merkel is also expected to raise the issue of American surveillance when she meets US President Barack Obama in Berlin next week.
Hannes Swoboda, a Socialist leader in the European Parliament, said the purported surveillance showed that America "is just doing what it wants".
