Angela Merkel says allegations of US spying on Germany are 'serious', and if proven true "would breach expected levels of cooperation between partners."
"If the reports are correct it would be a serious case," Merkel told a news conference in Beijing, standing next to the Chinese premier, Li Keqiang. ... "If the allegations are true, it would be for me a clear contradiction as to what I consider to be trusting cooperation between agencies and partners."
Germany's relationship with the U.S. is already strained by the Snowden revelations that showed that our NSA was engaged major spying activities in Germany including tapping Angela Merkel's cell phone.
The U.S. has not commented yet on the arrest of the employee of Germany's BND who says he had been selling classified information to the U.S.
Merkel is now visiting China where Germany has also complained to China about industrial espionage by Chinese agents.
"Germany is against [industrial espionage] –regardless of where it comes from," Merkel said. "We have a duty as the state to protect our economy... We are for the protection of intellectual property."
The Chinese Premier Li denied the Chinese government engaged in such spying and claimed they were also victims.
"China and Germany, it can be said, are both victims of hacking attacks. The Chinese government resolutely opposes hacking attacks as well as the use of the internet to steal commercial secrets or intellectual property," Li said. "China will engage in dialogue and consultation to protect the security of the internet."
On the Forth of July I posted this report on the arrest of the German intelligence officer Germany demands "immediate clarification" from U.S. Ambassador after man arrested for spying.
World tensions over excess U.S. surveillance of everyone around the globe escalated today as German demanded an immediate clarification from the U.S. Ambassador after a man arrested for spying said he worked for the United States. Alison Smale of The New York Times reports the details in her article German Accused of Passing Secrets, and Fingers Point at U.S..
BERLIN — In the latest turn in the yearlong tensions with Germany over American spying, a 31-year-old German man was arrested this week on suspicion of passing secret documents to a foreign power that appeared to be the United States, and the American ambassador was called in to the Foreign Office here and urged to help with what German officials called a “swift clarification” of the case.
The arrest came just as Washington and Berlin were trying to put to rest a year of strains over the National Security Agency’s monitoring of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone, and just months after an effort by Germany to strike a “no spy” accord with the White House collapsed.
While the White House and American intelligence officials refused to comment on the arrest, one senior American official said that the reports in the German news media that the man under arrest had been working for the United States for at least two years “threaten to undo all the repair work” the two sides have been trying to achieve
The man was originally arrested for begin a spy for the Russians, but the man said he has been working for the U.S., which might be exactly what we'd expect a Russian spy to say. With U.S. credibility with regard to global intelligence in tatters, that line of defense is probably not going to get very far.
The German Parliament is already investigating allegations that our NSA tapped the phones of top German government and corporate officials, including Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone.
Poignantly Chancellor Merkel was informed of this Thusday morning just before her conversation with President Obama as both parties are working to repair the damages done by our out-of-control intelligence agencies.
The White House did not say if this topic came up and the CIA and NSA were not available to say what their wiretaps indicate about the content of the conversation. (Snark alert.)
Recently, we also learned the NSA has been using the DEA as a cover to tap the telephones of top government and corporate officials in Latin America.
After 9/11, our U.S. intelligence philosophy seems to be that any conversation occurring around the world that is not monitored by the N.S.A. could represent a threat to our national security. What if someone talked about a terrorist act and we didn't spy on it? Would you want the potential loss of a major American city to a terrorist nuclear bomb on your conscious?
Any privacy by anyone anywhere could be a national security threat. Remember, "untapped lips, sinks ships." We could solve all of this is everyone in world would just agree to let the NSA install a RTFF dental implant in their front teeth at birth, so all of your conversations could be recorded and stored, for future reference. (Snark alert.)
Both the CIA and NSA refused to comment on these allegations, for real.
12:33 PM PT: Exclusive: CIA had role in Germany spy affair
Mark Hosenball of Reuters writes Exclusive: CIA had role in Germany spy affair,
(Reuters) - The Central Intelligence Agency was involved in a spying operation against Germany that led to the alleged recruitment of a German intelligence official and has prompted renewed outrage in Berlin, two U.S. officials familiar with the matter said on Monday.
CIA Director John Brennan has asked to brief key members of the U.S. Congress on the matter, which threatens a new rupture between Washington and a close European ally, one of the officials said.
It was unclear if and when Brennan's briefing to U.S. lawmakers would take place. The CIA declined any comment on the matter.
Adding irony to this sad case this article discloses that the subject of the classified data was the proceedings of Germany's parliamentary investigation of the U.S. spying on Germany revealed by Edward Snowden.