Reuters/Berlin
The German government has declined to comment on a report that US intelligence agencies were reviewing their co-operation with German counterparts and had dropped joint projects due to concerns secret information was being leaked by lawmakers.
Bild newspaper reported yesterday that US spy chief James Clapper had ordered the review because secret documents related to the BND’s co-operation with the United States were being leaked to media from a German parliamentary committee.
A spokesman for the US embassy in Berlin said it does not comment on intelligence matters.
Allegations the BND intelligence agency helped the US National Security Agency (NSA) spy on European companies and officials has been major news in Germany for weeks.
It has strained Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition and damaged her popularity.
“The German government puts great faith in the intelligence co-operation with the United States to protect our citizens,” a government spokesman said when asked about the Bild report. “The government doesn’t comment on the details of that co-operation in public but rather in parliament committees.”
The newspaper said that it had seen documents in which Clapper, director of national intelligence, expressed concern that information on the co-operation from Merkel’s chancellery to the parliamentary committee was leaked and harmed United States interests.
Clapper said Germany could no longer be trusted with secret documents, according to Bild, and as long as that is the case US intelligence agencies should examine where to limit or cancel co-operation with Germany.
Bild quoted a US official as saying that the leaks were worse than those attributed to former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
“What the German government is now doing is more dangerous than what Snowden did,” the US official was quoted saying.
Critics in Germany have accused Merkel’s staff of allowing the BND to help the NSA spy on European companies and officials.
A poll last week found one in three Germans feels deceived by Merkel regarding a row over spying on Germans.
Revelations by Snowden about wide-ranging espionage in Germany by the United States, including allegations that it bugged Merkel’s mobile phone, caused outrage in Germany when they emerged two years ago.
Merkel argues that the BND must work with the NSA to fight terrorism, but privacy is a sensitive subject in Germany, after decades of snooping by the Gestapo and then by the Stasi secret police in East Germany.
Merkel: argues that the BND must work with the NSA to fight terrorism.
