NSA späht Kanzlerin-Handy aus: Deutsche Politiker fordern Konsequenzen - SPIEGEL ONLINE
NSA späht Kanzlerin-Handy aus: Deutsche Politiker fordern Konsequenzen - SPIEGEL ONLINE
The NSA revelations provide for angry reactions in Germany. Apparently the Americans spied for more than ten years from the phone to the Chancellor. Representatives of SPD and Union push for consequences. The free trade agreement is up for debate, the Home Secretary is considering legal action.
Hamburg / Berlin - On the reconnaissance, eavesdropping, and apparently for years: German politicians are now calling for serious consequences from the NSA -Spähaffäre. The CSU calls for a halt to the negotiations with the U.S. on the proposed transatlantic free trade agreement . "We should put the negotiations on a free trade agreement with the USA on hold until the allegations against the NSA have been resolved," said the Bavarian Economics Minister Ilse Aigner (CSU) SPIEGEL.
Background are massive accusations against U.S. intelligence agencies that currently burden the German-American relationship: So for more than ten years, the NSA spied apparently already the phone by German Chancellor Angela Merkel made. This emerges from a secret file of the U.S. Secret Service, the SPIEGEL exists. Of its Berlin embassy, the U.S. government spying apparently from the entire district.
Majority of Germans favor sharp reaction
Also, the majority of Germans calls, according to a representative survey of the demo copy Institute YouGov ongoing contract negotiations with the United States to put on ice. In this sense, 58 percent of respondents expressed, 28 percent of respondents considered such a step wrong. At the same time, the survey found that 62 percent of respondents, the sharp reaction of Chancellor Angela Merkel in a telephone conversation with U.S. President Barack Obama hold for "just right"; 25 percent response rate as "too lenient".
Merkel, Obama had faced last Wednesday by phone with the allegations. In the phone call the U.S. president has assured the Chancellor that he knew nothing of a possible monitoring their mobile phone. According to information obtained by SPIEGEL, Obama declared that he would have stopped a wiretap immediately if he had been informed. The U.S. president had expressed his deep regret and apologized to Merkel, says the chancellor's office.
German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich (CSU) threatens the U.S. now with legal action: "If the Americans phones have listened to in Germany, they have broken German law on German soil", the CSU politician who said "Bild am Sonntag" ("BamS "). This violates the sovereignty of the Federal Republic and is unacceptable. "Listening is a criminal offense and those responsible must be held accountable," said the Minister.
The CSU politicians demanded a full investigation of all allegations. The U.S. would have to give an answer to where and to what extent they had intercepted communications of citizens and the state. "Trust in the United States allies is shocked," said Friedrich. However, Friedrich gets into the affair itself under pressure. Especially since he himself as well Chancellery Minister Ronald Pofalla had failed to pursue charges against the former NSA truly sustainable.
SPD calls for investigation committee
SPD parliamentary leader Frank-Walter Steinmeier criticizes the CDU and FDP to have the NSA affair for months downplayed because of the federal election campaign. This was to be no dominant election issue, Steinmeier said the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" ("FAS"). The affair of the U.S. NSA was never finished and it was not long either, Steinmeier said the "FAS" with a view to earlier remarks by Head of the Chancellery Ronald Pofalla (CDU), which suggested this.
Also the designated coalition partners of the Union is now urging consequences. , the SPD calls at the listening affair by U.S. intelligence to set up a committee of inquiry. "An NSA committee is unavoidable to restore confidence in the protection of privacy again," tweeted the parliamentary secretary Thomas Oppermann (SPD) on Saturday. , the Union had a committee previously rejected.
Also witnesses of the former U.S. intelligence employee Edward Snowden , who made known the massive eavesdropping, Oppermann deems appropriate. The SPD politician, who chairs the parliamentary control committee on Intelligence, told the "Bild am Sonntag", "Snowden information appear to be credible, while the U.S. government has lied to us clearly in this matter why Snowden can be a valuable witness, even at. the investigation of the eavesdropping against the Chancellor. "
The outgoing Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger went with the U.S. government also harshly. "The citizens rightly expect that American institutions comply with German laws. Unfortunately, many signs to the contrary," wrote the FDP politician to SPIEGEL information in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
In response to the scandal that wants Federal Office for Protection of the Constitution (BFV) now expand the counterintelligence. "We're talking about a fundamental realignment," said a senior security official to SPIEGEL. The staff of the BFV-Division 4, in which are currently more than 100 employees worked, could be doubled by the ideas of the trunk. One focus of the realignment will be monitoring the embassy building in Berlin's government district.
