Berlin aided NSA in economic spying against German companies: Analyst
A new report shows that Germany helped the US to spy against German companies amid Washington’s espionage activities in other countries, says former American intelligence linguist Scott Rickard.
Rickard made the comments in an interview with Press TV on Monday when asked about a report by a German newspaper that the office of Chancellor Angela Merkel has been aware of economic spying by the United States on European companies since 2008.
Citing intelligence agency documents, the Bild daily said on Monday that the US National Security Agency (NSA) sought to spy on European firms through the monitoring station of Berlin’s BND foreign intelligence agency at Bad Aibling in southern Bavaria.
The NSA reportedly attempted to spy on phone numbers and e-mail addresses at the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS), which is now known as Airbus, and Eurocopter, now called Airbus Helicopters.
Rickard said the report “proved that Germany actually aided the NSA in doing this economic spying against German companies.”
“One of the reasons that they stated that they had not pushed back on the actual spying of the German companies is that the BND in Germany does a lot of cooperation with the American intelligence CIA, NSA and others,” he explained.
He went on to say that “what really happens here is that you see the massive amounts of cooperation and massive amounts of economic espionage that the US does abroad, but in fact when any espionage is done in the states against American companies it’s considered taboo.”
“This is a clear indication of a very hypocritical nature of US spying abroad and not expecting it to happen domestically,” he added.
This “is a complete disregard for the privacy and for the sovereignty of other nations and it’s very sad to see Germany allowing this to happen to its country and its people,” he concluded.
In 2013, Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor, blew the whistle on the NSA, saying that Washington had been conducting massive Internet and phone data spying on “friendly countries and their leaders,” including Germany. The revelation outraged Chancellor Merkel.
According to the revelations, which soured relations between Germany and the United States, the NSA had tapped Merkel’s mobile phone.
AT/AGB
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