German paper: Obama told in 2010 about phone spying
BERLIN — A German newspaper said Sunday that President Barack Obama knew the U.S. intelligence service was eavesdropping on Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2010, contradicting reports that he told the German leader he did not know.
Germany received information last week that the National Security Agency bugged Merkel’s mobile phone, prompting Berlin to summon the U.S. ambassador, a move unprecedented in postwar relations between the close allies.
Reuters was unable to confirm Sunday’s news report.
The NSA denied that Obama had been informed about the operation by the NSA chief in 2010, but the agency did not comment directly on whether Obama knew about the bugging of Merkel’s phone.
The White House and the German government declined to comment.
German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said Sunday that U.S. intelligence agencies broke German laws if they monitored cellphones there.
“If the Americans eavesdropped on cellphones in Germany, they broke German law on German soil,” Friedrich said. “Eavesdropping is a crime, and those responsible must be held accountable.”
Citing a source in Merkel’s office, other German media have reported that Obama apologized to Merkel when she called him Wednesday and told her that he would have stopped the bugging had he known about it.
But Bild am Sonntag, citing a “U.S. intelligence worker involved in the NSA operation against Merkel,” said NSA chief Gen. Keith Alexander informed Oba- ma about it in 2010.
“Obama didn’t stop the operation back then, but let it continue,” the mass-market paper quoted the source as saying.
The NSA said, though, that Alexander had never discussed any intelligence operations involving Merkel with Obama.
“Alexander did not discuss with President Obama in 2010 an alleged foreign intelligence operation involving German Chancellor Merkel, nor has he ever discussed alleged operations involving Chan- cellor Merkel,” NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines said in an emailed statement. “News reports claiming otherwise are not true.”
Bild am Sonntag said Obama wanted information on Merkel and ordered the NSA to compile a “comprehensive dossier” on her. “Obama, according to the NSA man, did not trust Merkel and wanted to know everything about the German,” the paper said.
White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden declined to comment on the matter.