Germany may step up counter-espionage measures against United States
16 February 2014, 17:48
Germany may resume active counter-espionage operations against US and other Western agents after decades of only minimal monitoring, the news magazine Der Spiegel reported Sunday.
The resumption, including actively tracking US agents operating under diplomatic cover on German soil, follows revelations since June of US electronic surveillance in Germany and Washington's reluctance to agree to a blanket no-mutual-spying pact sought by Berlin.
Hans-Georg Maassen, head of the German domestic intelligence service, the BfV, publicly foreshadowed the move in November, saying Germany needed to 'adjust counter-espionage and take a 360-degree view.'
Spiegel said plans were advancing to massively expand counter-espionage personnel and conduct 'foundational monitoring' of the embassies of nations such as the United States and Britain.
Revelations last year that a non-government mobile phone which Chancellor Angela Merkel kept in constant use was being monitored by the US National Security Agency (NSA) prompted suspicions that shacks on the US embassy roof in Berlin contained radio listening equipment.
Both Merkel's office and the German parliament are within 1 kilometre of the embassy. Under the plan, Germany would aim to discover what technology was installed in the embassy buildings.
Since the scandal blew up after revelations by US whistle-blower Edward Snowden, Germany has been frustrated that Washington and London do not want to copy Germany's strict privacy legislation and have, in effect, justified spying on friends as ethical and normal.
Merkel said Saturday she would address privacy issues this week on a visit to Paris, including her demand for European Union minimum privacy standards. In a podcast, she said one aim was for European internet companies to protect Europeans from surveillance.
'Instead of your emails and other things having to cross the Atlantic, communication networks can be constructed within Europe,' she said, alluding to NSA tapping of lines carrying emails.
Germany is also likely to unleash a criminal inquiry into whether NSA snooping broke Germany privacy laws, after keeping this on hold during negotiations with Washington for fear it would anger the Americans.
A range of cabinet ministers now wanted to encourage prosecutors to press ahead, the magazine said, adding that a planned Merkel trip to Washington would not take place until her ministers had settled the policy response as a whole.
The magazine said a final go-ahead to step up counter-intelligence required agreement between Merkel's office, the Interior Ministry and the Foreign Ministry.
Legislators who specialize in interior policy with Merkel's own Christian Democratic bloc and with the other coalition party, the Social Democrats, favoured the change in course.
Germany closely monitors intelligence operations by China, Russia and North Korea, all of which have very large embassies in Berlin, but has paid only minimal attention to its own allies in the past.
The magazine quoted Clemens Binninger, a Christian Democrat and chairman of the parliamentary oversight committee on intelligence, as saying, 'We need to cease the differentiation and treat them all the same way.'
Spiegel said Germany's other main counter-espionage agency, the joint armed forces intelligence service MAD, was also reviewing whether it should pay more attention to allies' intelligence operations.
Voice of Russia, dpa
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