Winning friends abroad ? America is losing a generation of trust now.
- Germany said it believed U.S. intelligence may be spying on the chancellor's cellphone, an intrusion that it said would constitute a "grave breach of trust" between the longtime allies. Anton Troianovski reports on the News Hub.
The Wall Street Journal
By Anton Troianovski
and Siobhan Gorman
23 October 2013
Germany said it believed that U.S. intelligence agencies may be spying on Chancellor Angela Merkel's cellphone, an intrusion that could escalate the international furor over U.S. data surveillance and complicate Washington's relationship with one of its staunchest allies.
Ms. Merkel spoke by phone with President Barack Obama on Wednesday and made clear that such surveillance among allies would be "fully unacceptable" and a "grave breach of trust," her spokesman said in a statement released late Wednesday in Berlin.
Mr. Obama assured the German leader that the U.S. isn't monitoring her communications and won't in the future, a White House spokesman said. He wouldn't say whether it had occurred in the past.
The uproar in Berlin is the latest sign that the National Security Agency scandal has the potential to continue to inflict damage on Washington's relationships with overseas partners. Earlier this week, Mr. Obama called French President François Hollande, who expressed his "deep disapproval" over reports that the NSA was collecting data on tens of millions of French phone calls and messages. Reports of U.S. spying on Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff as well as Mexico's Enrique Peña Nieto during his successful presidential campaign have already strained the U.S. relationship with Latin America.
The German government's sharply worded statement came after it looked into an inquiry from the weekly Der Spiegel, the magazine reported. Der Spiegel said U.S. spies may have specifically targeted Ms. Merkel's cellphone—as opposed to having just intercepted her communications as part of a broader dragnet.
German intelligence followed up on the information and determined it may be true, according to the magazine, leading to the tense phone call with the White House.
There was no information as to how Ms. Merkel's phone was monitored or what information the U.S. gleaned.
If true, the allegations would present Washington with an even more serious diplomatic challenge that could affect a range of economic and security issues.
Germany, a member of the Group of Seven leading economies and the dominant economic force in Europe, is a crucial partner for the U.S. on a range of international issues, from combating the euro-zone crisis to negotiating a trans-Atlantic free-trade agreement.
Ms. Merkel has played an important role in talks over global hot spots like Syria and Iran, and Germany is home to the U.S. military's most important bases in Europe. In 2011, Mr. Obama hosted Ms. Merkel in Washington for a state dinner.
Given the depth of the relationship between the two countries and Germany's long-standing support of the U.S., it is unclear why U.S. intelligence might target her. Mr. Obama said over the summer, as allegations about NSA spying first surfaced, that he could simply call Ms. Merkel if he needed to know what she was thinking.
But Ms. Merkel conceivably may have been targeted for advance knowledge of Germany's positions before a major summit, or to understand Germany's relations with countries like Iran and Russia, said James Lewis, a former State Department official who is now a technology-policy specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"The Germans are basically running Europe now," he said. "What are the Germans thinking about the European crisis? Are the Germans going to stop bailing out the Greeks?"
The new revelations come ahead of a European Union summit on Thursday, where leaders are expected to discuss ways to protect personal data in the wake of previous disclosures about the NSA's surveillance programs. Demands for stronger protections and guarantees from the U.S. that it won't violate European privacy laws will have even more urgency following the disclosures about Ms. Merkel.
Ms. Merkel, despite an uproar in Germany over NSA surveillance over the summer, had appeared willing to give the U.S. the benefit of the doubt. Asked in a news conference July 19 whether she ever had "the uncomfortable feeling that the big brother from America might be listening in" while she talked on the phone, Ms. Merkel answered simply: "No."
On Wednesday night, the tone in Berlin changed sharply.
"The government has received information that the mobile phone of the chancellor may be under surveillance by U.S. agencies," said Ms. Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert. "We have made an urgent inquiry to our American partners and have asked for an immediate and comprehensive explanation."
In her call with Mr. Obama, Ms. Merkel said she "unequivocally deplores such practices and sees them as completely unacceptable," according to Mr. Seibert. The spokesman said Ms. Merkel expected U.S. agencies to explain their overall surveillance practices against Germany, "questions that the German government asked months ago."
Ms. Merkel is known as a frequent texter, sometimes sending and receiving missives in public.
When the NSA scandal first broke in Germany over the summer, with reports that the U.S. was spying on Germans, opposition parties tried to use U.S. surveillance as a campaign issue against Ms. Merkel.
But despite the approaching parliamentary election in September, she resisted calls to take drastic action against the U.S.—such as shelving talks on the free-trade agreement—and underscored the importance of international cooperation in collecting intelligence.
Germany's highly unusual statement and strong words came after Der Spiegel contacted the government about a related story it was working on, the publication reported on its website. Der Spiegel said Germany's intelligence agency and its information security office checked out the magazine's information and believed it was serious enough to confront the U.S. government with it.
Der Spiegel didn't say what sources its research was based on, but the magazine has published a series of articles in recent months based on documents from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Der Spiegel said there was evidence that Ms. Merkel "may have been a target for years for U.S. intelligence agencies." It didn't publish documents or other evidence to back up those claims.
The White House said Mr. Obama assured Ms. Merkel in the call that the U.S. "is not monitoring and will not monitor" her communications. "The United States greatly values our close cooperation with Germany on a broad range of shared security challenges," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
While not usually discussed in public, it is well known within intelligence circles that allies spy on each other.
Washington's assurances on Wednesday didn't appear to be entirely convincing.
"Between close friends and partners, as Germany and the United States have been for decades, such surveillance of the communications of heads of government cannot exist," Mr. Seibert said. "This would be a grave breach of trust."
original article found here
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