NSA is ‘in bed with the Germans’
US fugitive Edward Snowden has accused
Germany and the US of partnering in spy intelligence operations,
revealing that cooperation between the countries is closer than German
indignation would indicate, Der Spiegel magazine reported.
“They are in bed with the Germans, just like with most other Western states,” the
German magazine quotes Snowden as saying, adding that the NSA’s has a
Foreign Affairs Directorate which is responsible for cooperation with
other countries.
Partnerships are
orchestrated in ways that allow other countries to “insulate their
political leaders from the backlash,” according to Snowden, providing a
buffer between politicians and the illegal methods of snooping. He
accused the collaboration of grievously “violating global privacy.”
“Other
agencies don't ask us where we got the information from and we don't
ask them. That way they can protect their top politicians from the
backlash in case it emerges how massively people's privacy is abused
worldwide,” he said.
Snowden gave the interview to a cipher expert and a documentary filmmaker with the help of encrypted emails shortly before he rose to global fame, Der Spiegel reported.
Snowden gave the interview to a cipher expert and a documentary filmmaker with the help of encrypted emails shortly before he rose to global fame, Der Spiegel reported.
The publication recollected
that the US Army is simultaneously in the process of building a base in
Wiesbaden, southwest Germany, claiming it will be used as an
intelligence center by the NSA.
The
four-story bug-proof spying center is made from imported American
materials and costs $119 million. Its construction will allow for the
closure of over 40 existing sites across in Heidelberg, Mannheim and
Darmstadt, US Army Garrison Wiesbaden spokeswoman Anemone Rueger told
Stars and Stripes.
The Der Spiegel
report also indicates that the German Federal Intelligence Service, the
Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) and NSA work very closely together.
It was revealed at the end of June that the US combs through half a billion of German phone calls, emails and text messages on a monthly basis.
(A
kite flies near antennas of Former National Security Agency (NSA)
listening station at the Teufelsberg hill (German for Devil's Mountain)
in Berlin, June 30, 2013)
An earlier
report by Der Spiegel, also based on revelations by Snowden, revealed
that the NSA bugged EU diplomatic offices and gained access to EU
internal computer networks.
Chancellor Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert said that this would constitute intolerable behavior if proven.
“If
it is confirmed that diplomatic representations of the European Union
and individual European countries have been spied upon, we will clearly
say that bugging friends is unacceptable,” said Chancellor Angela
Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert.
“We are no longer in the Cold War,” he said.
Merkel
remained quiet regarding the Snowden PRISM leaks when Obama visited
Berlin, diplomatically stating that, “the topic of commensurability is
important.”
Germans are particularly
sensitive about eavesdropping because of the hangover from the intrusive
surveillance state which characterized the communist German Democratic
Republic (GDR) and Nazi era totalitarianism.
The
Der Spiegel report claims that the NSA provides the BND with analysis
tools to monitor data passing through German territory. Opposition
parties insisted when revelations were made about the extent of
espionage that somebody in Merkel's office, where the German
intelligence agencies are coordinated, must have known what was going
on.
BND head Gerhard Schindler
confirmed the existence of the two country’s intelligence partnerships
during a meeting with members of the German parliament’s control
committee specifically for overseeing intelligence issues, according to
Der Spiegel.
The BND is legally
allowed to look through 20 percent of transnational communications, in
addition to monitoring internet search terms and telecommunications,
Deutsche Welle wrote on June 30, while the US can essentially capitalize
on Germany’s data collection packets. The cooperation includes the
passing of data over areas deemed crisis regions.
The
BND lacks the capacity to fully use its legally allowed monitoring. Der
Spiegel reported that the agency is currently only monitoring only
about 5 percent of data traffic, but is planning to expand its server,
capacity and staffing in order to be more effective.
The
Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which overlooks
domestic counter-espionage, is currently investigating whether the NSA
has access to German Internet traffic. A preliminary analysis was
inconclusive.
“So far, we have no
information that Internet nodes in Germany have been spied on by the
NSA,” said Hans-Georg Maassen, the president of the Office for the
Protection of the Constitution.
NSA
whistleblower Edward Snowden fled the US in May a few weeks before his
first leaks were published by the Guardian. He is believed to have been
holed up in Moscow airport since June 23 and initially made asylum
requests to 20 countries, including Germany, followed by a further six.
Snowden was refused asylum in Germany on the grounds that asylum requests must be made on German soil.
A
spokesman of the Interior Minister said, “the German right of residence
principally entails the possibility of acceptance from abroad, if this
seems necessary for international legal or urgent humanitarian reasons,
or for the ensuring of political interests of the federal republic of
Germany. This needs to be examined thoroughly in the case of Mr.
Snowden.”
Source RT