NSA investigation: Germany arrests 'suspected US spy'

[RainfallWithin]

 

Quotes from BBC News source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28160767

 

 

An employee of Germany's intelligence agency has been arrested on suspicion of spying for the US, reports say.

 

The man is said to have been trying to gather details about a German parliamentary committee that is investigating claims of US espionage.

 

The US National Security Agency (NSA) was last year accused of bugging the phone of Chancellor Angela Merkel as part of a huge surveillance programme.

 

The NSA revelations put a strain on ties between Germany and the US.

 

German media say the man arrested this week is a 31-year-old employee of the federal intelligence agency, known by its initials, the BND.

 

According to the website of news magazine, Der Spiegel, the man is believed to have passed secret documents to a US contact in exchange for money.

 

Germany is particularly sensitive to reports of espionage on its territory because many of its citizens from the formerly communist east of the country were spied upon by the Stasi secret police.

 

The scale of the NSA's global spy programme was revealed in documents leaked last year by a former intelligence contractor, Edward Snowden.

 

 

Personal Thoughts

 

If there is enough evidence to show that the employee was spying for the United States, then this will be another huge blow for the NSA and the United States' government. It will severly strain the relationship between the United States and Germany even further, that's for sure.

[MikeTz]

Well if the US is actually spying Germany then the relationship with Europe will also get worse since Germany has a big influence in Europe...

So even bigger delta in prices for stuff in Europe and America :'(

[ViruZ_HUN]

ww3 is coming

[forgefilip]

this will put a strain on more than just the relations with germany, but the whole union will be be uneased by this. even if he isnt found guilty.

[Misanthrope]

this will put a strain on more than just the relations with germany, but the whole union will be be uneased by this. even if he isnt found guilty.

 

Good, maybe some IT companies will decide to move operations to EU and the US will feel more pressure to stop being spying dipshits openly by losing ground on that industry....Not that it's likely to happen but it would be nice.

[Enderman]

Well if the US is actually spying Germany then the relationship with Europe will also get worse since Germany has a big influence in Europe...

So even bigger delta in prices for stuff in Europe and America :'(

Yo the US is spying on EVERYONE not just germany. In case you didn't know, every other country does the same thing too.

[MayflowerElectronics]

[wpirobotbuilder]

I wonder if, at some point during the NSA operations, they were like "We've already set up this spying infrastructure, can't turn back now".

 

Macbeth ended in death.

[dizmo]

Yo the US is spying on EVERYONE not just germany. In case you didn't know, every other country does the same thing too.

Entirely this. I don't know why people think it doesn't happen. Every country has its own spy agency, and every country spies on one another.

Just think of it like high school with gossip and people going into each others cliques. Just on a larger scale.

[RainfallWithin]

Entirely this. I don't know why people think it doesn't happen. Every country has its own spy agency, and every country spies on one another.

Just think of it like high school with gossip and people going into each others cliques. Just on a larger scale.

 

This is almost definitely the case, however the United States seems to be collecting private data and spying on a huge scale. China is the other big example that people usually think of, but countries like the United Kingdom and Germany are certainly not innocent of spying either.

[Nineshadow]

Well if the US is actually spying Germany then the relationship with Europe will also get worse since Germany has a big influence in Europe...

So even bigger delta in prices for stuff in Europe and America :'(

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo

This is enough already.

$800 for a 780 is more than enough.

pls stop.

[MikeTz]

Yo the US is spying on EVERYONE not just germany. In case you didn't know, every other country does the same thing too.

Yes it's just that now that it is "known" the relationships between countries are going to get worse

[Lord_Kitty]

Yo the US is spying on EVERYONE not just germany. In case you didn't know, every other country does the same thing too.

Every other country? Not many countries have the technology to bug the phone of a head of a state so as to get an edge in international affairs.

There isn't many country that spend tax payers dollars to build huge facilities and software just for the sake of spying. I think you have no idea how big of a deal the whole NSA espionage thing is.

[Enderman]

Every other country? Not many countries have the technology to bug the phone of a head of a state so as to get an edge in international affairs.

There isn't many country that spend tax payers dollars to build huge facilities and software just for the sake of spying. I think you have no idea how big of a deal the whole NSA espionage thing is.

All of the big countries do it. Maybe not some poor small countries, but most do, such as canada.

[Imaginaerum]

Every other country? Not many countries have the technology to bug the phone of a head of a state so as to get an edge in international affairs.

There isn't many country that spend tax payers dollars to build huge facilities and software just for the sake of spying. I think you have no idea how big of a deal the whole NSA espionage thing is.

Then say every first world country. I'm sure Germany has a spy in America somewhere, you can't convince me they don't.

 

I don't know if this would really 'strain' relationships, maybe be an annoying backroom talk like "Hoy Obama wtf r u doin" but didn't they already do that when we spied on the prime minister? Or was that Brazil...

[Harjan]

This was the first thing i was thinking of when i read this

[Lord_Kitty]

All of the big countries do it. Maybe not some poor small countries, but most do, such as canada.

 

Yes, but they don't have anything close (as far as we know) to things like PRISM.

 

 

Then say every first world country. I'm sure Germany has a spy in America somewhere, you can't convince me they don't.

 

I don't know if this would really 'strain' relationships, maybe be an annoying backroom talk like "Hoy Obama wtf r u doin" but didn't they already do that when we spied on the prime minister? Or was that Brazil...

 

 

Brazil cancelled its order for fighter planes worth billions for Boeing. Germany had delayed the EU-US free trade negotiations because of the phone spying. It can still get much worse than that.

[E-Ro]

Yeah countries spy on each other, welcome to the world. 

 

I get more annoyed when governments get caught spying on their own people, I could care less about them spying on other governments.