Pierluigi Paganini
June 29, 2016
In April 2016, the German government replaced the head of the external intelligence service after a barrage of criticism over the support offered by the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) to the NSA in spying activities on European targets.
Bruno Kahl, a 53-year-old lawyer, will replace Gerhard Schindler, 63.
Snowden revealed that the NSA had tapped the German chancellor Merkel‘s telephone, the NSA tapped world leaders for US Geopolitical Interests, in particular, one of the documents, reports eavesdropping activities conducted by the US intelligence that spied on the communication between the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on climate change negotiations.
The agents of the National Security Agency have bugged a private climate change strategy meeting between the two politicians held in Berlin.
In June 2015, Wikileaks released another collection of documents on the extended economic espionage activity conducted by the NSA in Germany. The cyber the spies were particularly interested in the Greek debt crisis. The US intelligence targeted German government representatives due to their privileged position in the negotiations between Greece and the UE.
Germany had reacted with outrage when Snowden leaked documents that demonstrate the surveillance activity, in response, the Chancellor Merkel proposed the establishment of an external watchdog panel of jurists in order to evaluate the activities of the intelligence agency.
“Spying on friends is not on at all” said the Chancellor Merkel.
Source – The Guardian
What is happening today?
The German intelligence will likely continue to gather intelligence from EU governments and organizations, but its operation will be limited by law to “information to recognize and confront threats to internal or external security”.
The reforms still have to be approved by the German parliament, it represents a response of the Government to the findings of an investigation it has launched to clarify if BND alongside with the NSA spied on its European allies.
An investigator hired by the German Government wrote a 300-page report that confirms the surveillance activities managed by the NSA on the European government offices. The German intelligence helped the United States in cyber espionage operations.
The expert reported also the telephone numbers and IP addresses the US intelligence requested to the German BND to spy on, thousands of targets were investigated by the German intelligence under the instruction by the NSA.
Stay Tuned …
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(Security Affairs – BND, espionage)
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