NSA accused of lying to Germany over espionage

Iran Press TV

Sun Jan 26, 2014 3:33PM GMT

The United States' National Security Agency (NSA) has been accused of lying to Berlin concerning its spying on top German officials.

The NSA has lied at least twice to Germany over its spying activities, the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported on Saturday.

In a written Memorandum of Agreement in April 2002, the NSA assured Berlin 'to abide by the German laws and regulations governing the implementation of telecommunications and electronic information and processing."

However, American whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed last year that in 2002 the organization began eavesdropping on the phone conversations of dozens of world leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

On July 23, 2013, before it was known that Merkel's mobile phone was tapped, the NSA had once again claimed that it would“not do anything to harm German interests.'

Additionally, German Green Party politician Hans-Christian Stroebele, who is also a member of the Parliamentary Control Commission said,'The US has breached in 2002 its contract with Germany to comply with all German regulations for telecommunications surveillance. And they have lied to us in the summer [last year] once again...."

The German weekly Der Spiegel said in a report published in October 2013 that the magazine had seen secret documents from the NSA revealing that Merkel's cell phone had been listed by the agency's Special Collection Service (SCS) since 2002.

In last June, Snowden leaked two top secret US government spying programs, which revealed that the NSA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had been eavesdropping on millions of American and European phone records and the Internet data.

The scandal took even broader dimensions later, when the former NSA contractor revealed information about the organization's espionage activities targeting friendly countries.

SSM/AB