{"id":7765,"date":"2015-05-02T06:49:53","date_gmt":"2015-05-02T11:49:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=7765"},"modified":"2015-05-02T06:49:53","modified_gmt":"2015-05-02T11:49:53","slug":"angela-merkels-nsa-nightmare-just-got-a-lot-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=7765","title":{"rendered":"Angela Merkel\u2019s NSA Nightmare Just Got A Lot Worse"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/wolfstreet.com\/2015\/05\/01\/don-quijones-angela-merkel-nsa-bnd-nightmare-spy-scandal-got-a-lot-worse\/\" target=\"_blank\">Angela Merkel\u2019s NSA Nightmare Just Got A Lot Worse<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>Angela Merkel, Germany\u2019s most successful and popular politician, could be in serious trouble, after revelations that Germany\u2019s national intelligence agency, the BND, has been spying on key European assets on behalf of US intelligence. Those \u201cassets\u201d include top French officials, the EU\u2019s headquarters, the European defense corporation EADS, the helicopter manufacturer Eurocopter and even German companies.<\/p>\n<p>To wit, from\u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.spiegel.de\/international\/germany\/german-intelligence-agency-bnd-under-fire-for-nsa-cooperation-a-1030593.html\" target=\"_blank\">Der Spiegel<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n<p>In 2008, at the latest, it became apparent that NSA selectors were not only limited to terrorist and weapons smugglers\u2026 But it was only after the revelations made by whistleblower Edward Snowden that the BND decided to investigate the issue. In October 2013, an investigation came to the conclusion that at least 2,000 of these selectors were aimed at Western European or even German interests.<\/p>\n<p>Today, the German foreign intelligence agency is accused of processing over 40,000 spy requests from the NSA, many of which represent a clear violation of the Memorandum of Agreement that the US and Germany signed in 2002. Washington and Berlin agreed at the time that neither Germans nor Americans \u2014 neither people nor companies or organizations \u2014 would be among the surveillance targets.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>From Victim to Villain<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The scandal could be particularly damaging for the Minister of Interior Thomas de Maiziere, whose ministry is accused of misleading parliament after claiming, as recently as April 14, to have no knowledge of alleged US economic spying in Europe, and of Germany\u2019s alleged involvement.<\/p>\n<p>For Merkel, it is a dizzying reversal of roles and fortunes. In 2013 she was arguably the most high-profile victim of NSA surveillance when it was revealed that the NSA had targeted her cellphone. When confronted with Edward Snowden\u2019s allegations of US National Security Agency mass surveillance of European citizens, Merkel famously said that \u201cspying on friends is just not on.\u201d According to official accounts, she even placed a \u201cstrongly worded phone call\u201d to US President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Angela Merkel\u2019s NSA Nightmare Just Got A Lot Worse Angela Merkel, Germany\u2019s most successful and popular politician, could be in serious trouble, after revelations that Germany\u2019s national intelligence agency, the BND, has been spying on key European assets on behalf of US intelligence. Those \u201cassets\u201d include top French officials, the EU\u2019s headquarters, the European defense [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1890,5110,279,284,285,359,551,577,746,765],"class_list":["post-7765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-angela-merkel","tag-espionage","tag-eu","tag-european-union","tag-eurozone","tag-germany","tag-national-security-agency","tag-nsa","tag-spying","tag-surveillance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7765"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7766,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7765\/revisions\/7766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}