German Intelligence Employee Arrested On Suspicion of Spying For US On Bundestag

New submitter Plumpaquatsch writes: Deutsche Welle reports: "A member of Germany's foreign intelligence agency has been detained for possibly spying for the U.S. The 31-year-old is suspected of giving a U.S. spy agency information about a parliamentary inquiry of NSA activities. During questioning, the suspect reportedly told investigators that he had gathered information on an investigative committee from Germany's lower house of parliament, the Bundestag. The panel is conducting an inquiry into NSA surveillance on German officials and citizens; yesterday an ex-staffer told it the NSA was 'totalitarian' mass collector of data."

Comments

NSA: Stop Spying on Americans

[MarkvW]

You idiots! This is all happening because you insist on spying on your fellow citizens. I will support any politician who votes to gut your damn budget.

Now you're going to spy on me, I'm sure. Because you're not good Americans.

Get the message, dammit!

Yes we do

[MRe_nl]

The Men Who Stare At Goats

There is some history here

[MRe_nl]

The relationship between the CIA and the BND predates the CIA : ) and is at times complex. This book goes into some of the background for those that are interested:

http://www.cambridge.org/us/ac...

and volume 2.

Re:There is some history here

[ShanghaiBill]

If it predates the CIA, the CIA was not born, so how could there be a relationship between the BND and CIA?

German and allied intelligence agencies cooperated DURING ww2. In 1943, the leader of the Abwehr, Wilhelm Canaris, offered to assassinate Hitler, announce an immediate ceasefire, and negotiate a German surrender. Winston Churchill turned him down flat out, and said there would be no ceasefire, and the allies would accept no terms other than unconditional surrender.. So the war continued. In 1944, another group of German leaders again offered to negotiate a surrender, but they botched the assassination of Hitler, and, again, the allies refused to negotiate, dooming the coup. 90% of America's casualties in WW2 occurred after Germany offered to surrender the first time, and 75% occurred after Germany offered to surrender the second time.

Before

[arbiterxero]

What the article gets wrong and EVERYONE forgets is that the spying did not start AFTER 9/11 but BEFORE new york was attacked.

This was not in response to the twin towers, this was well under way before then.

Re:Before

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but yanks love to glorify 9/11 and rub the rest of the worlds noses in it and use it as an excuse for their past, current and future actions.

I personally regard 9/11 vocallers, like car alarms, i am desensitised to the cries of 9/11 and just switch to listening to Weird Al Yankovich songs in my head.

Re:In Soviet Germany...

[Anonymous Coward]

He was arrested on suspicion of being a Russian spy. He told investigators that he was actually spying for the Americans. Would he have been arrested if that had been the initial suspicion?

Re:In Soviet Germany...

[ShanghaiBill]

Would he have been arrested if that had been the initial suspicion?

Likely yes. In is illegal to spy on your own country, even for the benefit of allies. Just ask Jonathan Pollard.

Re: Wait a minute!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not wrong to spy on other countries. But it is wrong to spy on friends, allies and their heads of states, the entire world population, subverting encryption standards, undermining and ultimately destroying any trust into US companies by knowingly and unknowingly bugging services and devices (like the Cisco stuff), bypassing conventional laws and democracy by using FISA and national security letters, destroying every single bit of privacy, etcetera

There is a difference between normal intelligence work and the bullshit the NSA perpetrates.

Re:Wait a minute!

[DarkOx]

Spying on your enemies makes sense, they are after all your enemies.

Spying on your allies makes sense to a degree as well in that everyone has always done it. You might for example want to develop your own assessment of their military readiness and capabilities. You might try to obtain information about their long term economic prospects such as total mineral reserves and stuff like that as well. What you generally do not do is industrial espionage and you probably should not be directly spying on their secret government proceedings and the like, least it be discovered and you suddenly take on the unfriendly appearance of possibly attempting to manipulate or subvert their sovereignty; that is the sort of thing that turns allies into enemies.

Its a fine line, but at least when we are talking about a stable and relatively open society I think we should be erring on the side of "don't do it", especially if you think the revelation of it would be the least bit astonishing to anyone not completely naive about statecraft.