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COMMENT: In our long, ongoing For The Record series on The Adventures of Eddie the Friendly Spook (Snowden), we have noted a number of points, including the fact that all major intelligence services spy on the political officials, governmental agencies and intelligence services of other nations, including ostensible allies.
The revolting caterwauling coming from Germany over the NSA’s monitoring of Merkel’s cell phone should be weighed against the background of the following story. Note that, according to the venerable Der Spiegel, the BND has been doing exactly what NSA has been doing and doing it to the U.S. as well as other countries.
” . . . Der Spiegel, another respected Germany weekly, however, reported a similar story [6] over the weekend, writing that the German counterpart to the CIA, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), was spying on officials in the United States, Britain, France, Switzerland, Greece, and other European countries.
According to Der Spiegel, the list extended to NGOs, including the Red Cross and the International Criminal Court. The information was obtained “from sources [6].” . . .”
“They’re shocked, shocked!” [7]
We, however aren’t.
If YOU are “shocked, shocked,” consider this: If you are using T‑mobile, or it subsidiary company Metro PCS, you are communicating on technology owned by the German government, which owns a controlling interest in Deutsche Telekom, parent of the phone firms. Undoubtedly, the BND is monitoring your communications, and you should understand that foreigners have NO PRIVACY RIGHTS WHATSOEVER under German law.
Oh, yes, lest we forget, the BND is, of course, the successor to the Reinhard Gehlen Nazi spy outfit, and their are disturbing indications [8] that the agency has retained [9] much of its Nazi character. (See the second article below.)
Enjoy!
“Is Germany Spying on the FBI?” by Maddy Crowell; The Christian Science Monitor; 11/11/2015. [10]
President Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have exchanged some pretty awkward phone calls in recent years.
In 2013, Edward Snowden’s released documents revealed that the N.S.A. had been listening [11] in on Ms. Merkel’s personal cell phone conversations for a little over a decade. And last summer, before the wound between Germany and the US was fully healed, Ms. Merkel’s government expelled the C.I.A. station chief [12] from Germany after finding evidence that American spies were recruiting German officials.
“We want this cooperation based on partnership [13],” Merkel told the public broadcaster ZDF in an interview. “But we have different ideas, and part of this is that we don’t spy on each other.”
Merkel’s stance has repeatedly been that espionage against a close ally is unacceptable.
But a recent leak has turned the tables: A German intelligence agency is being accused of spying on the FBI, along with a series of other US firms, a UN health agency, and the International Criminal Court, according to a report released by the respected German public radio [14] station RBB-Inforadio.
Facts surrounding the release are unclear. The radio station provided no source for its report. Der Spiegel, another respected Germany weekly, however, reported a similar story [6] over the weekend, writing that the German counterpart to the CIA, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), was spying on officials in the United States, Britain, France, Switzerland, Greece, and other European countries.
According to Der Spiegel, the list extended to NGOs, including the Red Cross and the International Criminal Court. The information was obtained “from sources [6].”
“The facts behind these various press reports will be comprehensively investigated and of course the chancellery is involved in this investigation [15],” Christiane Wirtz, a German government spokeswoman, told reporters in Berlin.
Earlier this year, the BND came under fire after the news was revealed that it had assisted the NSA in spying on certain European institutions by monitoring email and telephone traffic [16].
Germany and the United States have been longtime allies in the years following the Cold War. The nations drew closer together after the September 11 attacks in a strengthened effort to counter global terrorism. Germany provided troops in Afghanistan. During the Iraq war, the BND helped the NSA create a spying station in Bavaria [17] – on the condition that German spies would operate it. But the past few years have felt the strain from intelligence services following the NSA leaks.
Merkel has yet to confirm whether the facts of the recent BND leak are correct. But if it’s confirmed, she and Obama might be having yet another phone call – and soon.
Historians conducting an internal study of ties between employees of the German foreign intelligence agency and the Third Reich have made a shocking discovery. In 2007, the BND destroyed personnel files of employees who had once been members of the SS and the Gestapo. . . .
. . . . Now, only one week before Uhrlau’s retirement, the commission has uncovered what is a true historical scandal. The researchers have found that the BND destroyed the personnel files of around 250 BND officials in 2007. The agency has confirmed that this happened.
The commission claims that the destroyed documents include papers on people who were “in significant intelligence positions in the SS, the SD (the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party) or the Gestapo.” They added that some of the individuals had even been investigated after 1945 for possible war crimes. Historian Klaus-Dietmar Henke, spokesman for the commission, told SPIEGEL ONLINE he was “somewhat stunned” by the occurrence.
Did Agency Employees Seek to Sabotage Investigation? . . .
. . . . It is no secret that some people within the BND are unhappy about Uhrlau’s project. Some employees are fundamentally opposed to the agency shedding light on its own past. Others are worried about the reputations of their own families — for many years, the BND deliberately recruited new staff from among the relatives of existing BND employees. . . .