As if Edward Snowden’s revelations about large-scale NSA surveillance in Europe and Germany, and the tapping of Angela Merkel’s mobile phone, had not already been enough, the U.S. spying scandal has entered its next chapter—despite all denials from the NSA and CIA.
To summarize what happened: last week a BND employee was arrested. He is accused of having sold 218 confidential BND documents over the past two years to the CIA for a total of about €25,000. The man worked in the department “Areas of Operation/Foreign Relations” and was apparently responsible for archiving documents. In that role, of course, he had access to sensitive internal material.
How did the BND catch him? Back in 2012, he offered his services to the CIA, which equipped his PC with software to communicate securely and in encrypted form with their agents. Meetings with an American handler reportedly took place in Austria. He was ultimately exposed because he also offered his services to the Russian embassy as a double agent. And how did the BND learn of this? Confident that the Americans would not spy on him, he used a Gmail account—an American service—to write an email to the Russian embassy. But the mail server of the Russian embassy is hosted by T-Online, in a German Telekom data center. The BND intercepted the email, began investigating, and asked their supposed American “partners” at the CIA for information about the Gmail account owner. The CIA, not foolish, apparently tipped off their mole that the BND had noticed his mail, prompting him to delete the account. This, ironically, led the German service straight to him. Last Wednesday, the handcuffs clicked shut.
What exactly was spied on? Not all the documents are publicly known. What is clear is that some of them included information related to the NSA inquiry committee of the Bundestag. Importantly, it is not the BND that investigates the NSA, but the Bundestag itself. So how did the BND get these documents? The logical implication is that they must have been eavesdropping on the Bundestag itself.
Another revelation: the BND appears to have been monitoring the email traffic of the Russian embassy in Telekom’s data center—otherwise, the attempted sale of documents would never have been noticed.
The lesson here is that essentially everyone spies on everyone else. The one exception: the BND does not spy on the U.S.—because, after all, we are “friends.” This only reinforces my belief that there is no such thing as friendship between nations. Germany is not “friends” with the U.S., nor vice versa. Friendship exists between people, not states or corporations. States and corporations operate only on the basis of shared interests and goals. And while Germany and the U.S. share some, they also have areas of deep mistrust. Enough, in fact, to justify spying on one another to verify whether goals truly align—or collide.
U.S. Senator John McCain called the affair “very unfortunate” and admitted, “This is obviously something the Germans will take strong offense at, and it will damage our relations.” Politically, that may be true—though probably not dramatically so. As citizens, we can at least learn from this why the German government is so cautious in its dealings with the NSA and CIA: because it relies on their knowledge and sources as well. No one wants to antagonize a partner they also benefit from. But it is high time for the BND to apply the same counterintelligence measures against the U.S. as it does against other nations. In sober terms, one intelligence agency spying on another is a rogue operation—a hostile act.
What reaction would I like to see? Ideally, all NSA and CIA staff in Germany should have their diplomatic status revoked and be expelled. Official NSA facilities—like the Dagger Complex near Darmstadt—should be shut down. Politically, it must be made unmistakably clear that a sovereign state like Germany does not tolerate hostile surveillance “among friends.” The U.S. would simply have to accept the consequences. Regardless, this scandal has caused enormous damage to the reputation of the American government—both in Germany and around the world.
What happens next? The BND employee has confessed and will stand trial. If the CIA admits its role as the buyer of information, it would heavily incriminate its former asset. He faces a likely prison sentence of five years. But the far more difficult issue is for the CIA itself, as Germany’s Federal Prosecutor General is now investigating. That could mean criminal proceedings against CIA personnel for espionage on German soil.
