. >> patty cullhane joins us now. what did you make of the speech?> it was surprising how few changes the president is actually recommends. the review panel produced a 300-page report. there were 46 recommendations. they were very detailed he is basically take half measures for each one of them. one thing a this is not talked about very much overseas is for years now the fbi has been able to use these national security letters. they send a letter to let's say a credit card company and say i need information on every transaction from patty cullhane. they have to hand over the information, but they are gagged and not allowed to tell anyone. basically the president is saying the only change might be that they have to tell me that they have searched my records but not in all cases. >> i thought he looked a little bit awkward? >> i did he did sound fairly defensive. we have heard several of these complains from the president in the last few months. but one of the things that was interesting, and he has said this before but not in such pointed language. he

patty cullhane joins us. ologies we have lost communications with patty. >>> the spying row has damaged relations with america's european allies. so how will the changes be viewed there? >> yes, relations were damaged and leading the criticism of u.s. surveillance activities here in europe has been germany. german age exes were outraged when it was revealed that the chancellor's cell phone was being listened into. so what do you think the german government will make of this development now? >> i think the expectations here in berlin are pretty low. they had been strangely enough quite high when it emerged that the americans had been listening in on the phone calls of chancellor merkel. the reason why is they saw opportunity in crisis. they had been hoping to join the five i's agreement. an agreement that existed since 1948 and basically involves the sharing of secrets amongst those countries. and spying on chancellor merkel, realizes that has not been the case. and they are not quite willing to sign what has b