Germany spied on Clinton, Kerry

[Lonestar]

Verily this glass hosue is buried in a rockslide

The German government faced an angry response by Turkey on Monday after reports that Berlin’s intelligence agency spied on its NATO partner.

Authorities in Ankara summoned the German ambassador to demand answers, with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu saying that if found to be true, the espionage would be “unacceptable, inexcusable.”

It follows reports in Der Spiegel that the German intelligence agency, known by its acronym BND, had inadvertently listened to calls made by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his predecessor Hillary Clinton – the kind of activity for which Chancellor Angela Merkel has criticized Washington. The magazine also cited a confidential 2009 BND document listing Turkey as a target for intelligence gathering, but didn't say what that spying involved.

Turkey said it had asked for a full explanation from German Ambassador Eberhard Pohl.

"It is expected that the German authorities present an official and satisfactory explanation on the claims reported by German media and end these activities immediately if the claims are true," the Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement.

German officials would not confirm Der Spiegel's report. Government spokeswoman Christiane Wirtz said only that the government in July informed a parliamentary intelligence committee about some of the matters in the report and would inform it about the rest soon. The panel is sworn to secrecy.

Last October, after reports surfaced that the United States had been monitoring her mobile phone, Merkel said that "spying among friends is not at all acceptable.”

The chancellor, asked about the spying reports during a visit to Latvia on Monday, said she could not comment on the activities of the intelligence services and made clear that her comment about spying on friends had been made with the special context of the German-American relationship in mind.

Some German lawmakers defended the idea of spying on Turkey. Christian Flisek, of the governing Social Democrats, noted that it is "a geopolitically important country."

The German opposition now accuses the government of hypocrisy. Greens party co-leader Simone Peter said it was "incomprehensible" that Germany should be "actively spying on allied states" after the outcry about the NSA's activities.

Germany is Turkey's largest trading partner in the European Union and is home to some three million Turks. But relations are not always smooth and Merkel's conservatives are skeptical about Turkish EU membership

Of all the things to whine about, "spying on foreign leadership" was always a ways down on the list in my eyes. Precisely because everyone does it.

[salm]

Unfortunately it isn´t nearly as big in the media as when the US spied on Germany so people are not going be riminded well enough how massivly hypocritical the government is.
A lot of people will probably pretty much ignore this. Among them a lot of the ones who got upset about the US spying on us. It´s not just the government that is going to be hypocritical.

[Welf]

The hypocrisy was obvious already last year. When Snowden revealed that every German citizen is controlled and spied on by the USA for no reason all the time the government played it down. When it turned out that the government was spied (and not only the plebs) on it suddenly became a big issue. If a government spies on another government that is impolite, but that's what everybody does. I can even understand why the US spied on Merkel, since her predecessor Schröder refused to join the Iraq war. Knowing something like that in advance is an understandable reason. In Turkey's case spying is mandatory because of security reasons. Erdogan is leader of a islamist movement who used to say that he plans to turn Turkey into an islamist state. Not to mention that all turkish administrations try to influence German politics by controlling the 3 million Turks in Germany.

[Thanas]

The scale is different.

[Mr Bean]

The scale is different.

All government's spy on other governments. If we found out Canada had a spy in the white house I'd congratulate them on getting an agent in and start revising my security protocols. I'd much prefer to find a dozen German spies over a single Chinese spy. The only thing that would come into it is that they are an American citizen. Electronic spying is simply part of the international game of nations.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I think there's an important bit in there:

"The German intelligence agency, known by its acronym BND, had inadvertently listened to calls made by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his predecessor Hillary Clinton."

Emphasis mine. That does suggest that, unlike the US, they didn't deliberately monitor Kerry and Clinton.

Overall though, it does seem a fairly petty thing to get annoyed about.

[Thanas]

The scale is different.

All government's spy on other governments. If we found out Canada had a spy in the white house I'd congratulate them on getting an agent in and start revising my security protocols. I'd much prefer to find a dozen German spies over a single Chinese spy. The only thing that would come into it is that they are an American citizen. Electronic spying is simply part of the international game of nations.

I think there is a bit of a difference between "we designed an elaborate apparatus to spy on every citizen of your nation" and "we happened to inadvertendly intercept a few phone talks".

[Mr. Coffee]

No, the only difference is we have a much, much larger budget for that sort of shit. If any thing this just proves what was said in other threads, that everyone does this shit.

[Broomstick]

How do you "accidentally" intercept a phone call?

Frankly, turn-about is fair play.

[Borgholio]

Even if it was intentional, who could blame them? Nations would be foolish to not keep an eye on their friends as well as their enemies. Nations backstabbing other nations who are supposed to be allies is not unheard of.

[Gaidin]

How do you "accidentally" intercept a phone call?

You can do a lot of things accidentally with wireless technology because the only part of the message communicated in the open is the protocol unless you're transmitting on amateur radio frequencies, where then the body of the message is transmitted in the open or openly defined for all to know.

[Tanasinn]

The scale is different.

All government's spy on other governments. If we found out Canada had a spy in the white house I'd congratulate them on getting an agent in and start revising my security protocols. I'd much prefer to find a dozen German spies over a single Chinese spy. The only thing that would come into it is that they are an American citizen. Electronic spying is simply part of the international game of nations.

I think there is a bit of a difference between "we designed an elaborate apparatus to spy on every citizen of your nation" and "we happened to inadvertendly intercept a few phone talks".

"inadvertently"

"Whoops, we accidentally intercepted privileged phone calls from members of your government. And wouldn't you know, they just so happened to be two key figures in international relations with a country we have a semi-rocky relationship with. It was an accident, we swear!"

Personally not upset about the spying at all, but the hypocrisy is, as always, delicious.

[Thanas]

Hey, how about you actually prove that this is part of some ongoing espionage program aimed at the US government on the scale of "we spy on every american citizen" before you equate apples to oranges? Because we have evidence such a program exists for the US. What is the evidence that Germany invests similar resources to spy on every US citizen?

[Tanasinn]

Goalpost shifting much? I never said that the German government spied on every U.S. citizen (I doubt they could bankroll that in any case). The German government, for that matter, was not particularly shitty about the U.S. spying on their citizens until it turned out the government was being spied on, too. As has already been pointed out by Welf vis a vis the Snowden leaks.

I'm simply laughing in the face of the idea that we're just supposed to accept the official explanation of an intelligence agency that just so happened to accidentally spy on the wrong people who just so happened to be worth spying on under the circumstances. That, and the hypocrisy of a government that proclaims moral outrage at being spied upon while also spying upon that selfsame country.

[salm]

The scale is different.

The German governmet only really started complaining when they found out that Merkel was spied on. They were fine with the US spying on every single German national and that´s part of the hypocrisy. On the one hand they complain about the US spying on Merkel but actually do exactly the same thing with high ranking US officials and what is even worse they downplayed the spying on the German people but got pissy when Merkel was spied on.
Every aspect of this is hypocritical to a ridiculous degree.

[K. A. Pital]

The scale is different.

The German governmet only really started complaining when they found out that Merkel was spied on. They were fine with the US spying on every single German national and that´s part of the hypocrisy. On the one hand they complain about the US spying on Merkel but actually do exactly the same thing with high ranking US officials and what is even worse they downplayed the spying on the German people but got pissy when Merkel was spied on.
Every aspect of this is hypocritical to a ridiculous degree.

Amen. Well said.

[Lonestar]

"The German intelligence agency, known by its acronym BND, had inadvertently listened to calls made by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his predecessor Hillary Clinton."

Yeah, I remember "inadvertently" conducting SIGINT operations while I was in the navy.


HOW COULD WE HAVE PREDICTED THAT AMERICAN CABINET MEMBERS WOULD CONTACT THE COUNTRY WITH THE BIGGEST (non-American)ARMY IN NATO?

[Gaidin]

The German governmet only really started complaining when they found out that Merkel was spied on. They were fine with the US spying on every single German national and that´s part of the hypocrisy. On the one hand they complain about the US spying on Merkel but actually do exactly the same thing with high ranking US officials and what is even worse they downplayed the spying on the German people but got pissy when Merkel was spied on.
Every aspect of this is hypocritical to a ridiculous degree.

Ok, is my memory off, or was PM Merkel really a part of that 'spy on every single German' program? Or was her phone just uhh...tapped. Like this one.

[FTeik]

I think it was more a case of the nationalistic/conservative Springer-press running wild, before the government could reign them in. Merkel and Co. know and accept, that the US spy on every german citicen, are aware and accept, that they themselves are probably spied on (it would be stupid not to) and would have preferred to kept the entire affair quite.
Enter the Springer-press, which is usually US-friendly, so they don't raise much of a stink about the spying on the average german (after all it is against possible communists and those evil muslims). Then they learn, that the leader of their conservative goverment - Her Royal Majesty Angela the First - was supervised, too and all hell broke loose. At that point Merkel and Co. had little choice, but to take a firm stand, to calm their right-wing/conservative electorate down and to not look like the lapdogs of the US.

Speaking of the BND, I'm wondering, if its past blunders were blunders at all and not just part of a brillant deception, that's supposed to present the image of boombling fools to everybody else. I mean, the more recent revelations about the BND's shady activities became known by the leak on the american side of things - Snowden.