Germany: No evidence NSA spied on Merkel
June 13, 2015, 4:26 am

At one point, relations between Merkel and Obama seemed to be tense, but that seemed to be a thing of the past at this week’s G7 Summit in Germany [Xinhua]

In October 2013, media reports revealed information based on leaked documents provided by NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden that phone and email communications of both Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and Merkel were under NSA surveillance.

Following the publishing of the reports in Germany’s Der Spiegel news magazine, Merkel issued a sharply-worded statement through her spokesperson. “Spying among friends – that’s totally unacceptable,” said Merkel at the time.

Germany’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office, which is responsible for crimes against national security, first launched an “observation process” to seek deeper insight of the spying allegations. In June 2014, a formal investigation was launched.

But in the 20 months since the whole process began, German prosecutors said they did not receive any cooperation from the NSA or Germany’s intelligence apparatus – the BND.

Washington in October 2013 had said it had never spied, nor ever would spy, on Merkel.

The termination of the investigation on Friday comes six weeks after Merkel’s government was accused by opposition parties and the media of working with the NSA to spy on European industries.

The allegations surfaced in an investigative article by the German daily Bild which revealed that the BND intelligence agency had been for years working with the NSA in counter-terrorism monitoring efforts.

But within the past decade, the mandate appears to have changed, Bild alleges, to include major corporations and industries. The New York Times reported on May 1 that the Airbus aviation company was launching a criminal espionage lawsuit and pushing the Merkel government for information regarding the Bild report.

The BRICS Post with inputs from Agencies