Thursday, May 07, 2015
After an investigation last month revealed German spy agency
colluding with NSA, German officials are 'pulling the emergency brake,' MP says
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is under pressure to explain
Germany's role in a joint spying operation with the U.S. National Security
Agency. (Photo: Globovisión/flickr/cc)
Germany is scaling back its intelligence-sharing operations with
the U.S., shortly after it was revealed that the German government had spied on
European allies on behalf of the National Security Agency from 2002 to 2013.
Government officials reportedly met Wednesday night to address
the growing pressure to explain Germany's role in the operation.
According to
an official who spoke to the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, the
restrictions will prohibit the country's intelligence agency, BND, from handing
over Internet surveillance data requested by the U.S. from a German
eavesdropping facility in Bavaria.
The WSJ continued:
A second
German official, however, stressed the decision only affected the BND’s
Bavarian outpost, which he described as a small part of the agency’s overall
intelligence sharing with the U.S.
...
Government officials haven’t commented publicly on the decision to curtail
sharing with the U.S. of intelligence from the Bavarian listening post, which
was disclosed in a classified briefing to select members of parliament on
Wednesday. It wasn’t immediately clear who ordered the move, though the
Chancellery officially oversees Germany’s intelligence agencies.
The revelation
last month that the country's intelligence agency, BND, had spied on "top
officials at the French Foreign Ministry, the Elysee Palace, and European
Commission... as well as European defense and aerospace firms" was
particularly embarrassing for Chancellor Angela Merkel, who previously slammed
the NSA for monitoring her cell phone.
The joint operation was disclosed through an investigation by
German parliament. Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière, who served as Merkel's
chief of staff at the time, came under fire for "allegedly lying about or
covering up the German collaboration with the Americans."
"It’s clear the emergency brake has been pulled here,"
Konstantin von Notz, a member of the Green Party who was involved in the
inquiry, said in a televised appearance on Thursday. "[Merkel] wants to
show she is doing something, but the mistakes really lie in previous
years."
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