uniqueness – wikileaks – at: hinnant and charlton

uniqueness – wikileaks – at: hinnant and charlton

Concludes aff

uniqueness – wikileaks – at: stopped spying on prez

We’re still spying – that fractures relations

Barack Obama has assured the French president, François Hollande, that American intelligence services are no longer tapping his phone. During a brief telephone call, the American leader was reported to have reiterated a pledge made two years ago to stop spying on his French counterpart, according to Hollande's office. But a vaguely worded statement released shortly afterwards by the White House failed to clarify whether the National Security Agency was still bugging the conversations and emails of other French diplomats and officials. The statement said Obama had "affirmed our unwavering commitment to the bilateral relationship including our ongoing close cooperation in the intelligence and security fields. The president reiterated that we have abided by the commitment we made to our French counterparts in late 2013 that we are not targeting and will not target the communications of the French president." It added that it was "committed to our productive and indispensable intelligence relationship with France, which allows us to make progress against shared threats, including international terrorism and proliferation, among others" - but left open the question of whether the US continued to spy on others in France.

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Surveillance of the US Paris embassy hurts US credibility and risks French relations

Hinnant and Charlton 6/24 (Lori is a correspondent for the Associated Press and specializes in international business and French news, Angela is a AP journalist and bureau chief, 2015, “Anger, no surprises as US is accused of spying on an ally _ this time, France”, http://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2015/06/24/french-president-calls-us-spying-revelations-unacceptable)//cc

PARIS (AP) — Embarrassed by leaked conversations of three successive French presidents and angered by new evidence of uninhibited American spying, France demanded answers Wednesday and called for an intelligence "code of conduct" between allies. France's foreign minister summoned the U.S. ambassador to respond to the WikiLeaks revelations, while President Barack Obama spoke by phone with his French counterpart. And all eyes were fixed on the top floor of the U.S. Embassy after reports that a nest of NSA surveillance equipment was concealed there, just down the block from the presidential Elysee Palace. "Commitments were made by our American allies. They must be firmly recalled and strictly respected," Prime Minister Manuel Valls said. "Being loyal doesn't mean falling into line." Obama told Hollande in the phone conversation Wednesday that the U.S. wasn't targeting his communications, the White House said. Obama said the U.S. was abiding by a commitment that he made in 2013 not to spy on the French leader after Edward Snowden disclosed the extent of NSA surveillance powers. That pledge came a year after the last of the revelations in the new Wikileaks trove, which date from 2006 to 2012 and appear to capture top French officials talking candidly about relations with Germany, Greece's economy and American spying on allies. The White House said Obama also pledged to continue close cooperation with France on matters of intelligence and security. If not a surprise, the latest revelations put both countries in something of a quandary. France's counter-espionage capabilities were called into question at the highest level. The United States, meanwhile, was shown not only to be eavesdropping on private conversations of its closest allies but also to be unable to keep its own secrets. "The rule in espionage — even between allies — is that everything is allowed, as long as it's not discovered," Arnaud Danjean, a former analyst for France's spy agency and currently a lawmaker in the European Parliament, told France-Info radio. "The Americans have been caught with their hand in the jam jar a little too often, and this discredits them." Still, the French weren't denying the need for good intelligence — they have long relied on U.S. intel cooperation to fight terrorism and are trying to beef up their own capabilities. The release of the spying revelations appeared timed to coincide with a final vote Wednesday in the French Parliament on a controversial bill allowing broad new surveillance powers, in particular to counter threats of French extremists linked to foreign jihad. The law, which would give intelligence services authority to monitor Internet use and phone calls in France, passed in a show-of-hands vote, despite a last round of criticism from privacy advocates concerned about massive U.S.-style data sweeps. It won't take effect, however, until a high court rules on whether it is constitutional. Hours before the vote, the Socialist-led government again denied accusations that it wants massive NSA-style powers. "I will not let it be said that this law could call into question our liberties and that our practices will be those that we condemn today," Valls said. Hollande, calling the U.S. spying an "unacceptable" security breach, convened two emergency meetings as a result of the spying disclosures. The top floor of the U.S. Embassy, visible from France's Elysee Palace, reportedly was filled with spying equipment hidden behind elaborately painted tromp l'oeil windows, according to the Liberation newspaper, which partnered with WikiLeaks and the website Mediapart on the documents.

French officials outraged by NSA spying allegations

Kouri 6/26 (Jim, Law Enforcement Examiner, 2015, “French complaints of U.S. spying evidence of Obama's poor management”, http://www.examiner.com/article/french-complaints-of-u-s-spying-evidence-of-obama-s-poor-management)//cc

The French government on Wednesday called on U.S. diplomats to answer questions about the latest allegations spying by the United States on French officials. French President Francois Hollande had called a meeting of his ministers and army commanders after WikiLeaks announced that the National Security Agency (NSA) have been spying on the France's president, according to news outlets overseas. Rampant electronic eavesdropping is nothing new. Bill Clinton had one of the most expansive spy programs known as the "Echelon Program." President Hollande told the U.S. embassy that his country won't allow actions that threaten its security and the protection of its interests and that this is not the first time that reports of U.S. spying on the French government and military have been received. President Barack Obama was intensely criticized by intelligence, law enforcement and military officers who believe his inexperience, lack of leadership qualities and his curiosity about what others are saying about him and his administration led to Wikileaks obtaining top secret information. "It's a known fact that people without security clearances are walking around the place [White House] with classified documents and treat it like it was yesterday's newspapers. At best, it's a sloppy way to run an intelligence program, at worst it's a good way to encourage theft of secrets," said former police intelligence unit detective Arthur J. Pullington. As is usually expected in U.S. Democratic administrations, a statement by officials with the National Security Council parsed their language when they claimed they were "not targeting and will not target" Hollande's and French government's communications. But the NSC failed to address past incidents of covert surveillance of key officials in France. Hollande had indicated a number of times that President Obama let him down with his failure to strike Syrian government positions in 2013 when they did cross Obama's figurative "red line." Obama had threatened to take action if the Syrian troops used chemical weapons against the rebels and civilians, which had happened. However, when they did and crossed the "red line" Obama did nothing. The French have also indicated their displeasure over US officials' weak-kneed participation in negotiations with Iranian official over Iran's nuclear weapons program. The allegation of U.S. spying on Western allies began with the revelation that the NSA had spied on Germany, especially German Chancellor Angela Merkel. It also became known that Germany's own intelligence official had worked with the NSA to conduct covert surveillance of officials and businesses in other European countries. WikiLeaks posted information on its Twitter account saying it plans to release documents providing more evidence of U.S. espionage of France. "We find it hard to understand or imagine what motivates an ally [the U.S.] to spy on allies who are [sic] often on the same strategic positions in world affairs," French government spokesman Stephane Le Foll told the news media. Ever since documents leaked by Wikileaks which it got illegally from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden showed in 2013 that the NSA had been eavesdropping on the cellphone of German Chancellor Merkel, it had been understood that the U.S. had been using the signal spy agency to eavesdrop on the conversations of allied political leaders and their militaries.

Reports of NSA spying in the United States’ Paris embassy reignite friction and threaten trust

Irish and Pineau 6/24 (John is a correspondent at Reuters and Elizabeth is a journalist at Reuters, the worlds’ largest multimedia news agency, 2015, “Obama reassures France after 'unacceptable' NSA spying”, http://news.yahoo.com/france-summons-u-envoy-over-unacceptable-spying-100448374.html)//cc

PARIS (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama reaffirmed in a phone call with his French counterpart Francois Hollande on Wednesday Washington's commitment to end spying practices deemed "unacceptable" by its allies. The presidents' conversation, announced by Hollande's office, came after transparency lobby group WikiLeaks revealed on Tuesday that U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) had spied on the last three French presidents. The latest revelations of espionage among Western allies came after it emerged that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) had spied on Germany and that Germany's own BND intelligence agency had cooperated with the NSA to spy on officials and companies elsewhere in Europe. "President Obama reiterated unequivocally his firm commitment ... to end the practices that may have happened in the past and that are considered unacceptable among allies," the French president's office said. Hollande had earlier held an emergency meeting of his ministers and army commanders and the U.S. ambassador was summoned to the foreign ministry. "France will not tolerate actions that threaten its security and the protection of its interests," an earlier statement from the president's office said, adding it was not the first time allegations of U.S. spying on French interests had surfaced. A senior French intelligence official will travel to the United States to discuss the matter and strengthen cooperation between the two countries, Hollande's office said. "We have to verify that this spying has finished," Stephane Le Foll, government spokesman, told reporters, adding that ministers had been told to be careful when speaking on their mobile phones. While Paris and Washington have good ties in general, U.N. Security Council veto-holder France fiercely maintains its independence on foreign policy and over the last two years there have been moments of friction and irritation on both sides. Hollande was disappointed by Obama's last-minute decision not to strike Syrian government positions in 2013. U.S. officials have frequently, in private, criticized France's tough stance in talks over Iran's nuclear program. The revelations were first reported by French daily Liberation and on news website Mediapart, which said the NSA spied on presidents Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande during the period of at least 2006 until May 2012. According to the documents, Sarkozy considered restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks without U.S. involvement and Hollande feared a Greek euro zone exit back in 2012. Wikileaks said it would soon publish more details on the nature of U.S. spying on France. Le Foll said Paris had not decided whether to launch legal proceedings as Germany had done but, amid calls from some quarters for retaliation, played down diplomatic consequences. "In the face of threats that we face and given the historic ties linking us, we have to keep a perspective," he said. "We're not going to break diplomatic ties." Germany's top public prosecutor closed a year-long probe earlier this month into the suspected tapping of Chancellor Angela Merkel's cell phone by U.S. spies. Claude Gueant, Sarkozy's former chief of staff and one of the reported targets of the NSA, told RTL radio: "I feel like trust has been broken." The documents, which included the cell phone of one of the presidents, included summaries of conversations between French officials on the global financial crisis, the future of the European Union, ties between Hollande's administration and Merkel's government.

Embassy spying seen as a serious breach of security commitments – wrecks French relations

Hinnant and Charlton 6/24 – Associated Press Correspondent, Master’s Degree in International Relations and Affairs from Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs; AP Chief of Bureau for France, the Benelux nations and North Africa, BA in Journalism from NYU (Lori, Angela, “US faces new allegations of spying, this time in France,” the Boston Globe, Associated Press, 6-24-15, https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2015/06/24/faces-new-allegations-spying-this-time-france/YA7wKZiW4Ti8IcWRg1GzWJ/story.html)//AD

PARIS — Embarrassed by leaked conversations of three successive French presidents and angered by new evidence of uninhibited American spying, France demanded answers Wednesday from the Obama administration and called for an intelligence ‘‘code of conduct’’ between allies. France’s foreign minister summoned the U.S. ambassador to respond to the WikiLeaks revelations, as French eyes fixed on the top floor of the U.S. Embassy after reports that trompe l’oeil windows there concealed a nest of NSA surveillance equipment just around the corner from the presidential Elysee palace. ‘‘Commitments were made by our American allies. They must be firmly recalled and strictly respected,’’ Prime Minister Manuel Valls said. ‘‘Being loyal doesn’t mean falling into line.’’ French President Francois Hollande spoke by telephone with President Barack Obama Wednesday and Obama reiterated promises to stop spying tactics considered ‘‘unacceptable between allies,’’ Hollande said. The White House also said Obama told the French president the US was not targeting his communications. Obama made a similar pledge after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed the extent of the agency’s surveillance powers in 2013. If not a surprise, the revelations put both countries in something of a quandary. France’s counter-espionage capabilities were called into question at the highest level. The United States, meanwhile, was shown not only to be eavesdropping on private conversations of its closest allies but also to be unable to keep its own secrets. ‘‘The rule in espionage — even between allies — is that everything is allowed, as long as it’s not discovered,’’ Arnaud Danjean, a former analyst for France’s spy agency and currently a lawmaker in the European Parliament, told France-Info radio. ‘‘The Americans have been caught with their hand in the jam jar a little too often, and this discredits them.’’ The French aren’t denying the need for good intelligence — they have long relied on U.S. intel cooperation to fight terrorism for example, and are trying to beef up their own capabilities, too. The release of the spying revelations appeared to be timed to coincide with a final vote Wednesday in the French Parliament on a bill allowing broad new surveillance powers, in particular to counter threats of French extremists linked to foreign jihad. Hollande, calling the U.S. spying an ‘‘unacceptable’’ security breach, convened two emergency meetings as a result of the disclosures about the NSA’s spying. The first was with France’s top security officials, the second with leading legislators — many of whom have already voted for the new surveillance measure. The documents appear to capture top French officials in Paris between 2006 and 2012 talking candidly about Greece’s economy, relations with Germany, and American spying on allies. The top floor of the U.S. Embassy, visible from France’s presidential Elysee Palace, reportedly was filled with spying equipment hidden behind carefully painted windows, according to the Liberation newspaper, which partnered with WikiLeaks and the website Mediapart on the documents. U.S. Ambassador Jane Hartley was summoned to the French Foreign Ministry. Hollande is also sending his top intelligence coordinator to the U.S. shortly, to ensure that promises made after earlier NSA spying revelations in 2013 and 2014 have been kept, the spokesman said. Valls said the U.S. must do everything it can, and quickly, to ‘‘repair the damage’’ to U.S.-French relations from the revelations, which he called ‘‘a very serious violation of the spirit of trust’’ between the allies. ‘‘If the fact of the revelations today does not constitute a real surprise for anyone, that in no way lessens the emotion and the anger. They are legitimate. France will not tolerate any action threatening its security and fundamental interests,’’ he said. Government spokesman Stephane Le Foll told reporters ‘‘France does not listen in on its allies.’’ He added, ‘‘we reminded all (government) ministers to be vigilant in their conversations.’’ The U.S. Embassy had no comment on the WikiLeaks revelations. U.S. National Security Council spokesman Ned Price released a statement Tuesday evening saying the U.S. is ‘‘not targeting and will not target the communications of President Hollande.’’ Price did not address claims that the U.S. had previously eavesdropped on Hollande or his predecessors, Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac.

Sacre bleu! Wikileaks reveals NSA French embassy surveillance – tension in relations

Morrissey 6/24 – Reporter of the Heritage Foundation, Political analyst (Ed, “Sacre bleu! France summons US ambassador over NSA surveillance of past three presidents,” Hot Air News, 6-24-15, http://hotair.com/archives/2015/06/24/sacre-bleu-france-summons-us-ambassador-over-nsa-surveillance-of-past-three-presidents/)//AD

The files of Edward Snowden continue to bring all sorts of damage to US intelligence and diplomacy. First came the documents that showed US intelligence had conducted surveillance in Germany, which led to months of strained diplomacy. Today it’s France’s turn to act shocked, shocked that its friends listen in on its sensitive communications: The French government reacted with anger on Wednesday to revelations about extensive eavesdropping by the United States government on the private conversations of senior French leaders, including three presidents and dozens of senior government figures. President François Hollande called an emergency meeting of the Defense Council on Wednesday morning to discuss the revelations published by the French news websiteMediapart and the left-leaning newspaper Libération about spying by the National Security Agency. In a spare but strongly worded statement released after the meeting, the government said the behavior was “unacceptable” and that it would not “tolerate any actions that put French security and the protection of French interests in danger.” The new information, this time regarding French officials, appears to come from the WikiLeaks trove of documents released by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward J. Snowden, and is from the period 2006 to 2012. Julian Assange, a co-founder of WikiLeaks, is listed as one of the authors of the Mediapart and Libération articles. This is the second time that WikiLeaks revelations have upended American diplomatic ties with a close ally. Relations between Washington and Berlin cooled significantly after reports in October 2013 accused the N.S.A. of monitoring one of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphones, although Germany’s federal prosecutor dropped a formal investigation this month because of a lack of evidence. They’re shocked enough to demand an explanation from the US ambassador, using the formal mechanism of diplomatic anger — the summons: France summoned the U.S. ambassador to the Foreign Ministry and the French president held a high-level emergency meeting Wednesday following revelations by WikiLeaks that the U.S. National Security Agency had eavesdropped on the past three French presidents. … U.S. Ambassador Jane Hartley was summoned to the French Foreign Ministry, according to government spokesman Stephane Le Foll. Hollande is also sending France’s top intelligence coordinator to the United States shortly, to ensure that promises made after earlier NSA spying revelations in 2013 and 2014 have been kept, Le Foll said. Calling the spying “incomprehensible,” Le Foll told reporters “France does not listen in on its allies.” Mon Dieu! France has a short institutional memory. For years, France conducted high-intensity industrial espionage against its European allies, a situation also revealed by Wikileaks in 2011. The US at that time considered French espionage to cause more damage than either China or Russia: France is the country that conducts the most industrial espionage on other European countries, even ahead of China and Russia, according to leaked U.S. diplomatic cables, reported in a translation by Agence France Presse of Norwegian daily Aftenposten’s reporting. “French espionage is so widespread that the damages (it causes) the German economy are larger as a whole than those caused by China or Russia,” an undated note from the U.S. embassy in Berlin said. In October, 2009, Berry Smutny, the head of German satellite company OHB Technology, is quoted in the diplomatic note as saying: “France is the Empire of Evil in terms of technology theft, and Germany knows it.” The NSA’s job is to surveil foreign communications for intelligence. As John Kerry said at the time, this “is not unusual for lots of nations,” especially one on which nations like France and Germany rely heavily for international security. The role of global policeman saves those nations from redirecting their own wealth into security rather than social welfare and bailouts of other European nations. Besides, these shocked, shocked nations also conduct their own intel operations, and it would be silly and naïve beyond belief to think that they don’t conduct intelligence gathering efforts about the US and its policy decisions, too. The key is not getting caught and embarrassing everyone into demonstrations of anger and sanctimony. That brings us back to Edward Snowden and the ongoing leaks from American intelligence operations. While the argument that Snowden had to abscond with this data to expose domestic-surveillance abuses and he did a service to Americans and their privacy by doing so is strong (although still debatable), there isn’t much of an argument for exposing the legitimate collection of foreign intelligence for which NSA and other agencies are commissioned. These releases seem calculated to do unnecessary damage to the US rather than push for any specific reforms.

France summoned US ambassador amidst spying allegations – heightened tensions risk hurting relations

Spark and Mullen 6/24 – Senior Broadcast Journalist, BA in Journalism form University of Leeds; CNN news desk editor (Laura, Jethro, “France summons U.S. ambassador after reports U.S. spied on presidents,” CNN, 6-24-15, http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/24/europe/france-wikileaks-nsa-spying-claims/index.html) //AD

France has summoned the U.S. ambassador for a meeting Wednesday in the wake of reports that the United States spied on French President François Hollande and his two predecessors -- despite France being a close ally. WikiLeaks has published what it said were U.S. National Security Agency reports about secret communications of the last three French presidents between 2006 and 2012. France won't tolerate "any action jeopardizing its security and the protection of its interests," the country's Defense Council said in a statement Wednesday. But it suggested it was already well aware of the spying allegations. "These unacceptable facts already resulted in clarifications between France and the United States" in 2013 and 2014, the Defense Council said. "Commitments were made by the American authorities," the council said. "They must be recalled and strictly respected." Hollande had convened a meeting of the council after reports appeared in the French press about the information released by WikiLeaks. Amid French anger over the latest revelations, the U.S. ambassador to France, Jane Hartley, has been summoned to appear at the French Foreign Ministry at 6 p.m. local time (noon ET). Hollande and U.S. President Barack Obama also will speak by telephone about the spying claims at some point Wednesday, Claude Bartolone, president of France's National Assembly, told CNN affiliate BFMTV. 'Indispensable partners' Responding to the reports late Tuesday, the White House's National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said: "We are not targeting and will not target the communications of President Hollande. "Indeed, as we have said previously, we do not conduct any foreign intelligence surveillance activities unless there is a specific and validated national security purpose. This applies to ordinary citizens and world leaders alike. "We work closely with France on all matters of international concern, and the French are indispensable partners." French government spokesman and Agriculture Minister Stéphane Le Foll said France was taking three immediate steps in response to the latest allegations. Besides summoning the U.S. ambassador, leading French lawmakers have been invited to a debriefing session at the Élysée, or presidential palace, he said. France's intelligence coordinator will be sent to the United States to discuss the measures already agreed between the two nations. In addition, Prime Minister Manuel Valls will answer a question from lawmakers Wednesday afternoon at the National Assembly, Le Foll said. Assange: 'Hostile surveillance' French newspaper Libération and online outlet Mediapart cited five NSA reports published by WikiLeaks on Tuesday and purportedly pulled from intercepted communications of former Presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy as well as Hollande and other French figures. According to a WikiLeaks news release, the cache of "top secret" documents includes "intelligence summaries of conversations between French government officials concerning some of the most pressing issues facing France and the international community." These include "the global financial crisis, the Greek debt crisis, the leadership and future of the European Union, the relationship between the Hollande administration and the German government of Angela Merkel, French efforts to determine the make-up of the executive staff of the United Nations, French involvement in the conflict in Palestine and a dispute between the French and US governments over US spying on France." WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said the French people "have a right to know that their elected government is subject to hostile surveillance from a supposed ally." WikiLeaks is proud of its work with Libération and Mediapart to bring the story to light, Assange said, adding that "French readers can expect more timely and important revelations in the near future." Responding to the reports, the party led by Sarkozy said in a statement that France was a great country that must be respected. Much as cooperation between allies' intelligence services is crucial against a common enemy, it is "unacceptable" that such intelligence tools are turned against an ally, it said. "It is unbearable that three successive presidents, their advisers, their ministers could have been regularly spied on for a decade by at least one of the 17 American intelligence agencies," the statement said. Sarkozy's party, formerly the UMP, was recently renamed Les Républicains. The UMP was also the party of Chirac. 'Oldest ally' France is a longstanding ally of the United States and, as a fellow permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and NATO, a key partner in international diplomacy. U.S. President Barack Obama earlier this year referred to France as "America's oldest ally." But these are not the first reports alleging U.S. espionage against its friends. In 2013, Le Monde reported that the NSA had monitored phone calls made in France, citing documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden to WikiLeaks. That surveillance was conducted on French citizens and carried out on a "massive scale," as reported by Le Monde. Those particular phone intercepts took place from December 10, 2012, to January 8, 2013, Le Monde said. An NSA graph showed an average of 3 million data intercepts a day. Also in 2013, CNN reported on allegations of NSA surveillance of other world leaders, including Merkel and the presidents of Brazil and Mexico.

Spying allegations wreck relations – US surveillance is too overreaching

Dyer 6-24 - BA in history from Memorial University of Newfoundland, MA in military history from Rice University, PhD in military and Middle Eastern history at King's College London, employed as a senior lecturer in war studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (Gwynne, “American spying out of control; Germany now counts U.S. as one of the 'pariah states',” Hamilton Spectator, 6-24-15, http://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/4646562-american-spying-out-of-control/) //AD

The question to bear in mind, when reading this whole sorry tale, is this; If Americans are, on average, no stupider than Germans, then why are their intelligence services so stupid? After the most recent revelations about American spying in Germany, there was considerable speculation among members of the Bundestag (parliament) that Germany might "get even" by inviting U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden to leave his Moscow exile and come to Berlin instead. But last weekend, Chancellor Angela Merkel rained all over that idea. "We learned things (from Snowden) that we didn't know before, and that's always interesting," she said, but "granting asylum isn't an act of gratitude." Given that one of the things she learned from Snowden was that the U.S. National Security Agency was bugging her mobile phone, this showed admirable restraint on her part. But even Merkel's restraint only goes so far. Only a week before, her patience with persistent American spying, even after Snowden's revelations, snapped quite dramatically: she ordered the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's "chief of station" at the American embassy in Berlin to leave the country. German media reports stressed that such drastic action had only been taken previously when dealing with "pariah states like North Korea or Iran." The United States has never formally apologized for tapping Merkel's phone. It refused to give her access to the NSA file on her before she visited Washington, D.C., in April. And it went on paying a spy who worked for the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND - Federal Intelligence Service). "One can only cry at the sight of so much stupidity," said Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, insisting that the information given to the U.S. by the spies was of no real value. That's probably true, yet the American controllers paid their spy in the BND almost $40,000 in cash for 218 secret German documents downloaded to computer memory sticks. Some of those secret documents were even about the discussions of the German parliamentary committee that was investigating the earlier American spying efforts, including the bugging of Merkel's phone. The American spy agencies simply don't know how to stop spying, even when they have been caught red-handed. They only got away with such brazen behaviour for so long because the Germans naively trusted them. The spy from the BND, for example, simply sent the U.S. embassy an email asking if they were interested in "cooperation." The German authorities didn't pick up on it because they didn't monitor even the uncoded communications of a "friendly" embassy. The spy was caught only when he got greedy and sent a similar email to the Russian embassy. Russian communications are monitored as a matter of course in all Western countries, so the German authorities put the spy under surveillance, and almost immediately they discovered that he was already selling his information to the Americans. "We must focus more strongly on our so-called allies," said Stephan Mayer, a security spokesperson of Merkel's Christian Democratic Party, and one of the first consequences will be the cancellation of Germany's "no-spy" agreement with the United States. In future, U.S. activities in Germany will be closely monitored by the German intelligence service. What is clear from all this is that the American intelligence agencies are completely out of control. They are so powerful that even after the revelations of massive abuse in the past year, very few politicians in Washington dare to support radical cuts in their budgets or the scope of their operations. They collect preposterous amounts of irrelevant information, alienating friends and allies, and abusing the civil rights of their own citizens in the process. The German intelligence agency (there's only one) doesn't behave like that. It chooses its targets carefully, it operates within the law and it doesn't spy on allies. Why the big difference? It's because the annual budget of the Bundesnachrichtendienst is just under $1 billion, and it employs only 6,000 people. The United States has only five times as many people as Germany, but its "intelligence community" includes 17 agencies with a total budget of $80 billion. There are 854,000 Americans with top-secret security clearances. The American intelligence community grew fat and prospered through four decades of Cold War and two more decades of the "War on Terror." It is now so big, so rich, so powerful that it can do practically anything it wants. And often it does stuff just because it can, even if it's totally counterproductive.

Surveillance has soured French relations – hidden equipment uniquely worse

Paterson 6-7 – Chief Correspondent (Tony, “Germany to spy on US for first time since 1945 after ‘double agent’ scandal,” Telegraph, 6-7-14, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germany-to-spy-on-us-for-first-time-since-1945-after-double-agentscandal-9590645.html) //AD

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government is planning to scrap a no-spy agreement Germany has held with Britain and the United States since 1945 in response to an embarrassing US-German intelligence service scandal which has deeply soured relations between Berlin and Washington. The unprecedented change to Berlin’s counter-espionage policy was announced by Ms Merkel’s Interior Minister, Thomas de Maizière. He said that Berlin wanted “360 degree surveillance” of all intelligence-gathering operations in Germany. The intelligence services of the Allied victors, the United States, Britain and France, have hitherto been regarded as “friendly” to Germany. Their diplomatic and information-gathering activities were exempted from surveillance by Berlin’s equivalent of M15 – the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND). But Mr de Maizière told Bild that he was now not ruling out permanent German counter-espionage surveillance of US, British and French intelligence operations. His remarks were echoed by Stephan Mayer, a domestic security spokesman for Ms Merkel’s ruling Christian Democrats. “We must focus more strongly on our so-called allies,” he said. The plan is in response to the scandal resulting from last week’s arrest of a 31- year-old BND “double agent” who spent at least two years selling top-secret German intelligence documents to his US spymasters in return for cash payments of €10,000 (£7,940) per document. Chancellor Merkel interrupted a current trade visit to China on Monday to describe the scandal as a “very serious development”. She added: “It is a clear contradiction of the notion of trustworthy co-operation.” German politicians have been shocked that the Americans not only failed to report the “double agent” but recruited him. Angela Merkel met Premier Li Keqiang in China to promote economic ties Angela Merkel met Premier Li Keqiang in China to promote economic ties (AFP) Several German MPs on Monday demanded the expulsion of the American agents in Germany who recruited the “double agent”. Hans-Peter Uhl, a leading conservative, told Der Spiegel: “ It goes without saying that the [US] intelligence official responsible should leave Germany.” The double agent is reported to have simply emailed Berlin’s American embassy and asked whether officials were interested in “co-operation”. He subsequently downloaded at least 300 secret documents on to USB sticks that he handed to his American spymasters at secret location in Austria. He was caught by German counter-espionage agents only after he was found offering similar BND documents to Berlin’s Russian embassy. The Germans had considered it “impossible” that one of their own intelligence men could be working as a “ double agent” for the Americans. New German counter-espionage measures would almost certainly result in the monitoring of “listening posts”, which both the American National Security Agency (NSA) and its British equivalent, GCHQ, run from the roofs of their respective Berlin embassies. Their existence was revealed at the height of the first spying scandal to dent Berlin’s relations with Washington which erupted last year when evidence supplied by the US whistle-blower Edward Snowden revealed that NSA bugged Ms Merkel’s mobile phone. The US bugging operation was conducted from a listening post on the roof of the American embassy in Berlin, which is located only metres from the government district. Britain’s GCHQ was operating an almost identical “listening post” from the top of the UK’s embassy on Berlin’s nearby Wilhelmstrasse.

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