German Government lied when it denied knowledge of BND and NSA collusion in economic espionage

© AP / Matthias Schrader

    

It emerged last week that Germany's intelligence service the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) had violated the country's Constitution by helping the US National Security Agency (NSA) spy on European politicians and companies.

However, in an official government statement to the Bundestag on April 14, the Interior Ministry said:

"We have no knowledge of alleged economic espionage by the NSA or other US agencies in other countries."

In view of the emergence of collusion between the BND and the NSA, Linke Party (Left Party) MP Jan Korte told Der Spiegel "the parliamentary answer from April 14th is very clearly a lie" and that he would not believe "one more word" from the government relating to spying.
Politicians and Companies Targeted

Former NSA executive Thomas Drake told Sputnik on Monday that the US agency had passed a list of some 800,000 IP addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses to the BND for monitoring in Germany on their behalf.

Some of the IP addresses belonged to European politicians and companies, including the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company. Drake said the NSA-BND relationship has been extraordinary close for years, and expanded significantly after the September 11 terrorist attack on the United States.

"Here you have the BND in total violation of the German Constitution, but it doesn't matter [to them]."

"If there is no accountability, then they are not incentivized to stop," Drake said.

Comment: William Binney, who spent 36 years in the NSA and is now highly critical of the agency's spying programs, was interviewed last November regarding the NSA surveillance program. During the interview he commented about speaking as a witness by the NSA commission of the German parliament, the Bundestag:

LS: A few months ago it was revealed that the NSA could have had access via the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) to data at the DE-CIX internet hub in Frankfurt. If this was the case - the DE-CIX Management GmbH Frankfurt denies that this took place - the BND would have violated German law. [See the press release by the DE-CIX Management GmbH Frankfurt (in German)] Can you tell us, please, how such arrangements between NSA and BND come about that are including breaches of law?

WB: The agencies like NSA and BND would set up a separate international agreement between the two agencies that would have to be passed and approved by at least some portion of the government. That is, your government would need to agree to it and so would ours, and that starts with the agencies agreeing on what to cooperate on and how to cooperate and what the ground rules are for that cooperation. That's then passed to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, or very restricted numbers of people in administration would also be able to see that kind of agreement, and the same would be true I assume on the BND side and the German government.