Merkel left red-faced by fresh spying claims
Germany faces ‘hypocrisy’ charge amid claim it spied on US military, industry, government and even Nasa
GERMAN intelligence agents systematically spied on the White House and US government departments over a number of years, it has been claimed.
The damaging allegations could prove highly embarrassing for Angela Merkel and expose her to charges of hypocrisy over her outrage in 2013, when it emerged that the US had tapped her mobile phone. At that time, the German chancellor famously declared that “spying among friends is not on”.
But according to new allegations published in Der Spiegel magazine, Germany’s BND intelligence service carried out electronic surveillance on the US government from 1998 to 2006.
Targets included phones, fax machines and computers in the White House, State Department and the US Treasury. They also included the US military, private defence contractors such as Lockheed Martin, and Nasa.
Der Spiegel claimed it had seen a list of so-called “selectors” – telephone and fax numbers and email addresses that the BND was covertly monitoring. Among them were 4,000 targets in the US including government departments, foreign embassies and international organisations such as the International Monetary Fund and the Arab League.
Military targets included the US Air Force and Marine Corps, and the Defence Intelligence Agency.
It is claimed the BND also spied on NGOS, including the New York-based organisation Human Rights Watch.
Der Spiegel said it was not clear if surveillance continued after 2006, as it had not seen records for later dates. Mrs Merkel became German chancellor in November 2005.
Neither the BND nor the government have commented on the allegations, which are the latest in a series to rock Germany’s spying establishment.
Bruno Kahl, who took over as head of the BND a year ago with a brief to clean up the agency’s reputation, has declined to comment on past spying. “The question of who the BND is allowed to monitor and who it is not, will not only be subject to more stringent rules in future, but also to very extensive control,” he told the magazine, whose claims come a week before a German parliamentary inquiry into spying is due to present its final report.
The so-called “NSA Committee” was originally set up to investigate foreign spying in Germany after disclosures by Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency whistle-blower.
However, the committee has found itself increasingly investigating German intelligence after it emerged in 2015 that the BND had spied on Germany’s European allies on the NSA’S behalf. Later, it emerged the BND spied on the US and several EU allies on its own initiative as recently as 2013.
The disclosures throw Mrs Merkel’s 2013 call for a “no-spying agreement” with the US into a new light. Berlin has since drawn up new rules for who and what the BND is allowed to spy on.
Der Spiegel claims the MPS’ inquiry is so divided, its final report will have two separate sets of conclusions, by both government and opposition members.