Germany asks top US spy to leave the country
(AP/The Guardian) – The German government has asked the top representative of America’s secret services in Germany to leave the country. Members of the government’s supervisory panel announced the measure at a press conference in Berlin this afternoon.
Clemens Binninger, a member of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, who chairs the committee that oversees the intelligence services, explained that the move came in response to America’s “failure to cooperate on resolving various allegations, starting with the NSA and up to the latest incidents”.
The move comes in response to two reported cases of suspected US spying in Germany and the year-long spat over reported NSA spying in Germany, including claims that Merkel’s phone was tapped.
Merkel’s spokesperson, Steffen Seibert, confirmed the decision in an official statement, which said: “The government takes these activities very seriously. It is essential and in the interest of the security of its citizens and its forces abroad for Germany to collaborate closely and trustfully with its western partners, especially the US.
“But mutual trust and openness is necessary. The government is still prepared to do so and expects the same of its closest partners.”
Burkhard Lischka of the Social Democratic party said: “For over a year we have been asking questions and failed to get a response.” As a result, Lischka said, “cracks” had started to appear in Germany’s relationship with America.
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Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said that the scope of the cases and who was involved are not yet clear, but that talks are taking place with the United States at various levels.“If the situation remains what we know now, the information reaped by this suspected espionage is laughable,” de Maiziere said in a statement. “However, the political damage is already disproportionate and serious.”
Spiraling Spying: Suspected Double Agent Further Strains German-US Ties
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Spiraling Spying: Suspected Double Agent Further Strains German-US Ties
(Der Spiegel) – BFV’s counterespionage efforts helped to uncover an email sent a few weeks ago to a Russian diplomatic outpost in Germany that might otherwise have gone unnoticed. The sender had sought to offer his services as an informant to the Russians. To prove he wasn’t setting a trap, the man also used Gmail to enclose classified documents from his employer, Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND). If needed, he wrote, he’d be happy to deliver even more. The letter sent shockwaves through the BFV as it became apparent that, once again, the country had been struck by another wave of spying, this time involving Russia.
The German intelligence agencies prepared a trap to snag the suspect. Under a forged Russian email address, they made it look like they were taking him up on the deal and offered a meeting with him. He refused, forcing them to come up with another idea. In their desperation, they even turned to US agencies to ask if the Gmail account was familiar to them. They didn’t get any response. Instead the secretive informant closed his email account a short time later. Investigators smelled something fishy.
Brazen
German authorities first succeeded in detaining the man last Wednesday. And if what the 31-year-old BND employee told investigators is true, it’s actually the Americans, not the Russians, who are at the center of the latest spying scandal to strike Germany. And it would further demonstrate the Americans’ sheer brazenness in spying on what is supposedly one of Washington’s closest partners.
The man, who federal prosecutors arrested on suspicion of being a foreign spy, told astounded officials that it hadn’t only been representatives of Moscow to whom he had offered his services. He also claims to have contacted the US Embassy in Berlin by email two years ago and to have offered his services as an informant. He apparently had success, too, and has since completed a number of assignments for US agents. Most recently, he received an order to pass along any information available on the special committee in Germany’s federal parliament investigating NSA spying in Germany.
German NSA panel to invite heads of US Internet giants
BERLIN (PhysOrg) May 21, 2014 – A German parliamentary panel looking into US Internet and telecoms surveillance plans is to invite the heads of Facebook, Google, Apple and Microsoft, a lawmaker said.
The panel was set up to assess the extent of spying by the US National Security Agency and its partners on German citizens and politicians, and whether German intelligence aided its activities.
It earlier decided it wants to question fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden, perhaps via video link or by sending an envoy to Russia where he has been given temporary asylum.
Snowden, regarded as a traitor by US President Barack Obama’s administration and subject to an arrest warrant, has spoken via video link to other bodies, including the Council of Europe.
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Protestors hold up placards featuring a picture of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden during a march against the spying methods of the US in Hamburg. Dec. 28, 2013
