Wikileaks: 'Massive' NSA espionage of top German officials

[reorg]

Source: Deutsche Welle

Wikileaks says its latest release of documents shows the wide reach of economic espionage conducted by the NSA in Germany. Documents released by the whistleblowers suggest an intense interest in the Greek debt crisis.

A new batch of documents released by Wikileaks on Wednesday purports to show the extent to which the spying conducted by the US National Security Agency (NSA) on German officials was economic in nature, as opposed to being focused on security issues.

As far back as the late 1990s, the phone numbers of officials in the German Ministry of Finance, including sometimes the ministers themselves, were targeted by NSA spies, according to a Wikileaks press release. The list of high priority targets for Germany are mostly telephone numbers within the finance ministry, some within the ministry of agriculture, a few within offices responsible for European policy, and advisors who assisted Merkel ahead of G7 and WTO meetings. One of the targets was within the European Central Bank itself.

Some of the espionage also dealt with the handling of the Greek debt crisis, particularly in "intercepted talk between Chancellor Merkel and her assistant, the Chancellor talks about her views on solutions to the Greek financial crisis and her disagreement with members of her own cabinet, such as Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, on matters of policy."

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Read more: http://www.dw.com/en/wikileaks-massive-nsa-espionage-of-top-german-officials/a-18556918

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See also:

WikiLeaks says NSA spied on French finance ministers, business activity
http://www.dw.com/en/wikileaks-says-nsa-spied-on-french-finance-ministers-business-activity/a-18550661


The Euro Intercepts
https://wikileaks.org/nsa-germany/

[cpwm17]

1. Silly Wikileaks and its supporters:

[reorg]

2. ah, a blast from the past

Last edited Wed Jul 1, 2015, 10:05 PM - Edit history (1)

Back to watching 'The Americans' now.

[Adrahil]

4. Wait, are you suggesting it's illegal to gather foreign intelligence?

Based on what?

[MADem]

3. When will Wikileaks release that trove of Russian stuff they got a few years back...?

It seemed like that release "went away" around the time they got a major infusion of cash...?

Five years is a long time to wait...

http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2028283,00.html

[cstanleytech]

5. Isn't LBN for new news? So how exactly is this "new" since its been well established that the NSA

was spying (which is their job) in and on other countries?

[reorg]

6. Yes, the new news is

that 'the spying conducted by the US National Security Agency (NSA) on German officials was economic in nature, as opposed to being focused on security issues'

which hadn't sunk in yet, except in France where Airbus has already filed 'a criminal complaint over allegations that German intelligence helped the US carry out industrial espionage'.

[cstanleytech]

7. So? There isnt anything in their mandate that limits their intelligence military information and

economic information is actually vital because countries will be doing things like setting budgets and buying equipment for their military also pay their military personal unless you think they work for free.
And btw if you had read the article you linked you seen this part

Leaks from a secret BND document suggest that its monitoring station at Bad Aibling checked whether European companies were breaking trade embargos after a request from the NSA.

[reorg]

10. Yes, the NSA is only watching over us

So bad things won't happen. Obviously, they need to listen in and record every call by senior management in politics and industry in all major European countries, including 'allies' and 'friends'.

[cstanleytech]

11. Ah yes, the old fall back to sarcasm when your own link blows up in your face.

Well played

[reorg]

12. 'My own link' demonstrated that Airbus considers industrial espionage illegal

and has filed a complaint.

I have no idea what you are blathering about. What trade embargo has Airbus violated and how come we don't know about it even though the NSA have kept a watchful eye?

[cstanleytech]

13. Your own link said that the intel was being gathered to find out if an embargo was being violated.

[reorg]

16. Not relevant to the OP

which is about NSA espionage on high level officials in Germany's finance and agricultural ministries, officials coordinating with the EU, and in the European Central Bank.

What you keep harping on is a speculative assumption by a BBC reporter about the spying on Airbus in France.

[cstanleytech]

17. Its relevant because you attempted to manipulate the information in a way

to imply that the NSA was doing something wrong when the fact is they were apparently doing their jobs and gathering intelligence to try and make sure an embargo was not being violated.

[Beauregard]

18. "Doing their jobs"?

Yes, they were doing their jobs. That's the problem. They were "doing their jobs" when they tapped Angela Merkel's cell phone, too. And when they started batch collecting metadata on all our phone calls. Just doing their jobs!

[cstanleytech]

20. Shes part of the German government, not the United State government so yes the NSA was doing

Last edited Thu Jul 2, 2015, 04:10 PM - Edit history (1)

doing its job.
If you dont like how they are doing their job? Oh well thats your problem.

[Beauregard]

23. Sorry, your post is incomprehensible.

[cstanleytech]

26. Corrected and apologies its a combination of posting with a 7 inch screen and android

auto-correcting.

[reorg]

22. Industrial espionage is illegal

in France, that's why Airbus filed a criminal complaint against the NSA (and the German BND who assisted the NSA in this case).

Not only is it illegal, it's also frowned upon by those who are subject to the espionage. That's why the US ambassador was summoned to Merkel's office today.

You seem to be implying that the NSA can do no wrong.

Well, we don't know exactly yet what they did and how they are trying to explain it away. Fact is they provided the BND (in the case of the spying on French officials and industry) and most likely British intelligence with so-called 'selectors', keys which would trigger the recording of data. The German government has refused to share these lists with the Bundestag investigative committee looking into the matter.

So Wikileaks was helping out and made a number of these selectors public, here phone numbers of officials whose conversations were monitored, recorded and summarized.

Very interesting is that this practice reaches far back and beyond the cooperation agreement between BND and NSA after 9/11 (which the BBC article was referring to). They already spied on Oskar Lafontaine when he was Finance Minister, a well-known proponent of market regulation and a financial transaction tax. Lafontaine left this post in 1999.

[cstanleytech]

25. "You seem to be implying that the NSA can do no wrong. "

Nope, they have done wrong at times I am sure but gathering intelligence on foreign companies and governments is part of their job.

[foo_bar]

27. the Nuremberg defense?

[cstanleytech]

28. Odd, I didnt know that intelligence gathering fell into being a war crime.

[foo_bar]

29. I think the defense applies more broadly

Superior orders, often known as the Nuremberg defense, lawful orders or by the German phrase "Befehl ist Befehl" ("orders are orders&quot , is a plea in a court of law that a person, whether a member of the armed forces or a civilian, not be held guilty for actions which were ordered by a superior officer or a public official. <...>

Apart from the specific plea of Superior Orders, discussions about how the general concept of superior orders ought to be used, or ought not to be used, have taken place in various arguments, rulings and Statutes that have not necessarily been part of “after the fact” war crimes trials, strictly speaking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders

I'm sorry for transgressing Godwin's, but "part of the job" isn't much of a moral defense (not sure how it fares as a legal defense when you're on the losing side of a war.)

to imply that the NSA was doing something wrong

I think you're conflating "wrong" and "illegal"; I imagine they're doing a fine job at whatever their job is, and any country would be nuts not to spy on Germany (and they're more like the 51st state as measured in per capita Burger Kings or former Army bases), but I think the question here is "is the NSA acting in accordance with the public interest?" not whether they claim to act in our self-interest, since claiming that is part of the job as well, given the self-sustaining logic that keeps our alphabet soup afloat.

[cstanleytech]

31. I am just pointing out is that as far as US law goes the NSA is doing its job which is

Last edited Thu Jul 2, 2015, 11:27 PM - Edit history (1)

the gathering of intelligence in and on other countries.
That is not say they arent breaking laws inside those countries nor am I am implying that they have never broken laws inside ours at other times because they probably have but in this instance as far gathering intelligence goes they are doing what they were setup to do which monitor and gather intelligence on other nations.

[reorg]

30. Perhaps you can explain then to me

why the German government should cooperate with and provide premises for an agency that is committing criminal acts and spies on its hosts?



NSA in Wiesbaden: Consolidated Intelligence Center (CIC)

Would you be as sympathetic and tell us it's only natural and their job if Germans decide to remove these premises, say, by way of lighting them up with an incendiary device?

[cstanleytech]

32. I will bet you 5 bucks that Merkel was told that the NSA was likely spying on her long ago

and only a fool would assume they werent and Merkel doesnt strike me as fool.
And the intelligence agencies pretty all over the world that have been sharing information with each other are going to continue to do so and that includes Germany and the US sharing information with each other, this story isnt going to stop that all it did was highlight that spying is still going on today.

[JonLP24]

15. It always sees

the spies targetting outside and those that spy on the US are looking for trade secrets. Wars are fought over trade but the interest both from the US is trade and from the outside trying to find out what the US is up to.

[Blue_Tires]

8. Filed under "shit we already knew"...

Of course Germany spies on others too, but you won't see wikileaks ever talk about that...

[Beauregard]

19. Did you already know this exact information? How?

And why do they have to talk about German spying? To give equal opportunity to Germans?

[Blue_Tires]

33. How did I know? Because I've read a history book or two?

Because governments have been spying on each other since the dawn of civilization??

[LanternWaste]

24. The ethical coward often predicates his action on those of others

"Of course Germany spies on others too, but you won't see..."

The ethical coward often predicates his action on those of others rather than examine them for what they are...

[Blue_Tires]

34. Which is of course a bullshit statement when

one entity is held to a completely different ethical standard than everyone else...Try harder...

[riderinthestorm]

9. More proof our spying isn't to catch terrorists but for corporate greed

not new news but more proof that our spy agencies work to enhance the PTB's pocketbooks.

[coyote]

14. Yup that's about the gist of it

We are all being scared to death by terrorism to hand over our hard earned dollars to the NSA security apparatus to enrich our corporate masters. it's diabolically brilliant.

[Sunlei]

21. NSA goes through EVERYONES private online stuff. Who knows how many of the 20,000? nsa employees

sell that information to others?

If Snowden and others could download NSA data off computers, anyone can.