{"id":3208,"date":"2013-07-21T20:20:01","date_gmt":"2013-07-22T02:20:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/?p=3208"},"modified":"2013-07-21T20:20:59","modified_gmt":"2013-07-22T02:20:59","slug":"germany-intelligence-cooperated-with-nsa-as-merkel-denied-knowledge-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/?p=3208","title":{"rendered":"Germany intelligence cooperated with NSA as Merkel denied knowledge \u2013 report"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Published time: July 21, 2013 10:56 <\/span><\/div>\n
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A man wears a mask of U.S. President Barack Obama during a protest in support of former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden in front of Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, July 4, 2013.(Reuters \/ Thomas Peter)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Der Speigel magazine has revealed German intelligence operated one of NSA\u2019s spying programs. Chancellor Angela Merkel had denied any previous knowledge of NSA\u2019s tactics, adding that she first learned about them through the media.<\/p>\n

Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, along with the domestic intelligence agency the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), used American National Security Agency\u2019s (NSA) XKeyScore program, according to Spiegel\u00a0 which claims to have seen the US intelligence service\u2019s secret documents.<\/p>\n

The BfV office had the XKeyScore program, which was installed to \u201cexpand their ability to support NSA as we jointly prosecute CT (counterterrorism) targets.\u201d<\/em> And the BND office was tasked with showing the BfV how to operate the program, the secret documents said.<\/p>\n

An internal NSA presentation from 2008 revealed that XKeyScore is able to expose any terms a person under surveillance has typed into a search engine and receive a \u201cfull intake\u201d<\/em> of all unfiltered data over a period of several days, including content of communications.<\/p>\n

The program uses metadata \u2013 information about data connections \u2013 to access the targeted information.<\/p>\n

The documents also disclosed that up to 500 million German data connections were accessed monthly by the NSA. The majority of the connections were collected through the XKeyScore program.<\/p>\n

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\"AnAn aerial view of the construction site of the new Federal Intelligence Service (BND) headquarters in Chausseestrasse in the district of Mitte in Berlin.(Reuters \/ Robert Grahn)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Documents also reveal\u00a0 cooperation between the NSA and Germany recently strengthened, referencing BND head Gerhard Schindler\u2019s \u201ceagerness and desire\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

“The BND has been working to influence the German government to relax interpretation of the privacy laws to provide greater opportunities of intelligence sharing,”<\/em> Spiegel quotes the NSA as saying in January. And in 2012 Germany showed a \u201cwillingness to take risks and to pursue new opportunities for cooperation with the US.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The document further stated that BND was NSA\u2019s \u201cmost prolific partner\u201d<\/em> in information gathering in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

The magazine reports that the relationship between the two is close \u201con a personal level\u201d<\/em> and at the end of April, just before Edward Snowden\u2019s first revelations about NSA spying programs, a 12-member high-level BND delegation was invited to the NSA to meet specialists on the subject of “data acquisition.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The BND, BfV and the NSA have refused to comment about their connection.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Chancellor Merkel spoke out strongly in favor of an international agreement to protect electronic data.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should be able, in the 21st century, to sign global agreements,\u201d<\/em> Merkel told the weekly Welt am Sonntag in an interview published on Sunday. \u201cIf digital communication raises new questions worldwide, then we should take up the challenge. Germany is working for that.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Angela Merkel is facing re-election on September 22 and has received pressure from critics to admit what she knew about the US online surveillance.<\/p>\n

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\"German<\/em><\/em>German Chancellor Angela Merkel.(AFP Photo \/ Johannes Eisele)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It emerged recently that Germany happens to be the most-snooped-on EU country by the American National Security Agency (NSA). The NSA\u2019s real-time online surveillance PRISM program allows US intelligence agencies to intercept virtually any communications over the internet, phone calls and makes possible direct access to files stored on the servers of major internet companies.<\/p>\n

In early July, US fugitive Edward Snowden accused Germany and the US of partnering in spy intelligence operations, revealing that cooperation<\/a> between the countries is closer than German indignation would indicate.<\/p>\n

Chancellor Merkel declared that she learnt about the US surveillance programs, such as the NSA\u2019s PRISM spy program, \u201cthrough the current reporting\u201d<\/em> in the media.<\/p>\n

Yet, Angela Merkel in interview to Die Zeit weekly stressed<\/a> that \u201cAmerica has been, and is, our most loyal ally over the decades,\u201d<\/em> but pointed out that Washington should clear up the situation with the US allegedly bugging the embassies of European countries and EU facilities, noting that \u201cthe Cold War is over.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The German government subsequently summoned US Ambassador Philip Murphy to Berlin to explain the incendiary reports.<\/p>\n

RT<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Published time: July 21, 2013 10:56 A man wears a mask of U.S. President Barack Obama during a protest in support of former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden in front of Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, July 4, 2013.(Reuters \/ Thomas Peter) Der Speigel magazine has revealed German intelligence operated one of NSA\u2019s spying programs. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[97,104],"tags":[188,212,185,190,186,179,166,141,158,159,1221],"class_list":["post-3208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-democracy","category-featured","tag-cia","tag-germany-2","tag-human-rights","tag-information-technology","tag-intelligence","tag-internet","tag-law","tag-politics","tag-scandal","tag-security","tag-usa"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/1.si_.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2SfUR-PK","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3208"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3211,"href":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3208\/revisions\/3211"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myfutureamerica.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}