Breach of Trust: Part 1

1. American Promises? No Way

On Monday, Aug. 5, 2013, a high-ranking delegation from Germany drove up to the National Security Agency’s extremely secure property in Fort Meade. The four men were in the middle of a discrete mission. Shortly before this, former NSA employee Edward Snowden had leaked the global surveillance practices of the U.S. security agency. Now the Germans also wanted to know what to expect regarding espionage occurring in their country.

The gentlemen who had made their way to NSA headquarters were Klaus-Dieter Fritsche, then state secretary in the Ministry of the Interior, Gerhard Schindler, president of the Bundesnachrichtendienst or BND, Hans-Georg Maaßen, president of the Agency for the Protection of the Constitution, and Günter Heiß, director of Department VI of the German Chancellery, responsible for the coordination of secret services.

The leaks from Snowden and WikiLeaks; the chancellor’s tapped cellphone; the BND-CIA double agent; contract work by the BND for the NSA; spying on ministers; no investigations of NSA spies, yet investigations of two German bloggers who posted secret documents — for two years there has been one development after another. Spies are recalled and ambassadors are summoned, advisers travel to crisis meetings across the Atlantic. But none of the participating parties has told the complete truth.

Which American activities did the Germans know about? Did the government and the BND hide the extent of their cooperation from the public? Die Zeit has investigated these questions. It spoke with employees of the chancellor’s office and the White House, with former presidents of the BND, NSA and CIA, with representatives and ambassadors. Many were only willing to speak with us if we could guarantee anonymity.

The result is the story of a crisis of trust and fundamental misunderstanding. At the same time that Germany and America were acting harmoniously — in proceedings with Russia and in the fight against the Islamic State — a strong antagonism toward each other was revealed.

In Fort Meade, Maryland, not far from the U.S. capital, the four German envoys were to meet with NSA Director Keith Alexander on that day in August 2013. Alexander had had to justify himself to an upset American public: Had the NSA actually spied on the telephone calls of all U.S. citizens and read all of their emails?

Congress was also demanding an explanation from the NSA boss and his fellow co-workers. Over and over again, they were summoned at the last minute before secret service committees in the Senate and House, at which point they hopped in their black SUVs and sped down the I-295 to Washington.

Although the meetings demanded time in his schedule, Alexander allowed time for his visitors. Germany was a close ally of the U.S.; the outrage triggered on the other side of the Atlantic by the Snowden leaks had been noted by NSA headquarters.

The conversation turned first to the question of whether or not the Americans had spied on German companies. Possibly, Alexander pondered, a deal could be struck that would clear up all the Germans’ worries.

The visitors had yet another appointment that day. They continued from Fort Meade to Tysons Corner in the vicinity of Dulles International Airport. There resided James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence. Clapper was America’s highest level intelligence boss, coordinating the work of the NSA, CIA and the 14 other American intelligence agencies. On that day, Clapper submitted a proposal to his visitors, which astonished them and eventually caused a furor in Berlin. The Americans, the four Germans reported after their return, wanted to offer the German government a “no-spy treaty” — an agreement for Germany and America not to spy on one another. The four were surprised. They had come expecting the Americans to provide them with information about which leaks the German government should anticipate. But they were not prepared for such an offer.

Why would Clapper offer a no-spy treaty to the Germans, of all people, an agreement that America has with no other country on the planet? Guilty conscience, according to the chancellor’s office. That’s not convincing, as nothing had changed with respect to the actual contradictions. On the one hand, Washington and Berlin were working more closely together than ever before; on the other hand, the U.S. government had permitted the chancellor’s cell phone to be tapped. On the one hand, the intelligence agency exchanged its knowledge daily and cooperated in the espionage of third parties; on the other hand, they did not trust each other about their means. Friends were not allowed to spy on one another, the Germans demanded. Don’t be so naïve, espionage is part of the business, the Americans answered.

For a moment after the Snowden leaks in the summer of 2013, the German government gave the impression that the antagonism could be overcome. The Americans, they suggested, wanted to create a foundation of trust with the no-spy treaty. The German government based its actions on the four envoys’ reports. In the middle of campaign season these messages were highly welcome in the chancellor’s office.

However, in Washington, the existence of such a promise was disputed. A presidential adviser told Die Zeit that Germany had mixed something up. “Weaker offers,” as the intelligence agencies may have termed them, had been overinterpreted. There can be no doubt that the White House alone would make the final decision as to whether Germany should eventually be spared from American espionage. And the White House would not hear of a no-spy treaty.

The Germans Don’t Belong to the Family

The U.S. intelligence coordinator Clapper had already prepared the visitors from Germany for a possible veto from the White House against such a deal. They had communicated this offer to Berlin, but the chancellor’s office preferred to ignore this.

After the national election, Merkel’s foreign policy adviser Christoph Heusgen traveled to Washington. In October 2013 he was to deliver a final clarification. Susan Rice, Obama’s national security adviser, did not beat around the bush: An agreement going that far would not be considered. There has never once been such a no-spy treaty among the Five Eyes, the five Anglo-American states that have very closely cooperated in espionage since World War II and largely avoided spying among themselves: the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

It was now clear to the German government that an authoritative consent by the Americans, to behave on German soil only according to German laws, would not happen. Berlin had hoped for evidence of trust, but apparently Washington does not trust its German friends.

2. The Germans Don’t Belong to the Family

Nevertheless, hope for a concession from the Americans did not come from nowhere. Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, Washington became interested in a tighter partnership with the German secret services. As Die Zeit learned from former White House officials, the American government had considered special cooperation with the Germans; this would be similar to that of the Five Eyes. The secret offer — the talk was of a bilateral contract, a “Five Eyes Minus” — came from Condoleezza Rice’s circle, the national security adviser at the time and later secretary of state under George W. Bush.

But the offer was soon dropped once again. Suspicion prevailed on both sides. German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder feared that Berlin could get trapped in dirty operations. In Washington, Germany’s reputation sunk low due to Schröder’s “no” to the Iraq War. In no way did the U.S. want to give up spying on Germany; quite the opposite, they wanted to know exactly what Berlin was thinking.

Not much has changed since then. Michael Hayden, former director of the NSA and CIA, declared it publicly: Germany simply is not trusted enough. “It’s the culture, the language, the historic roots, but also the often similar political judgments that tie all of the Five Eyes together.”**

Germany remains a little too distant, due to its opposition in World War II and its present pacifism. The German ambassador in Washington, Peter Wittig, summed it up: “Our partnership is very close, but ultimately there is only one difference compared to the British: We don’t belong to the family.”**

Additionally, the German secret services stick too closely to procedure, according to Washington. “The BND was an incredibly difficult partner for me,” says Hayden. “I didn’t want them to break German law; but they took forever to share with me what was allowed and not allowed.”**

3. Anyone Interesting Will Be Spied On

Hayden maintains to this day that German politicians are legitimate targets for espionage. The ex-Air Force general was also director of the NSA from 1999 to 2005, and head of the CIA from 2006 to 2009. Now the retiree works for a private security company.

But Hayden also wanted a closer relationship with the BND during his time in office, though never at the price of a no-spy agreement with the Germans. “Even if Germany is still such a good and an important friend, our interests are always more important. There are times when German politics deviate from what the Americans would prefer. Knowledge about that is useful for America’s government.”** And he declares that Obama’s promise from 2013 not to spy on Merkel’s cellphone “only counted for this chancellor. I repeat, only for this chancellor.”** Espionage is an internationally accepted normality for Hayden. Therefore to discriminate between friend and enemy does not make much sense. “The NSA is not a crime enforcement agency. We don’t spy on the evil, we spy on the interesting.”**

Hayden tells the story of the presidential candidate Obama and his Blackberry. He had organized his entire campaign with the device. “In 2008, when President Obama was elected, he had a BlackBerry. We thought, oh God, get rid of it. He said, ‘No, I am going to keep it.’ So we did some stuff to it to make it a little more secure.

“We’re telling the guy who was going to soon be the most powerful man in the most powerful country on Earth that, if in his nation’s capital he uses his cell phone, his BlackBerry, countless number of foreign intelligence services are going to listen to his phone calls and read his emails. It’s just the way it is,” Hayden added.

The task of the intelligence service is to gather useful information. Otherwise the general rule is: Don’t let yourself get caught.

But what is useful information? Hayden uses the weeks before the Iraq War in 2003 as an example, when the U.N. Security Council had to decide whether there should be a mandate on behalf of the United Nations for the imminent military intervention. As leaked by a former translator for the British intelligence agency General Communications Headquarters, at that time, the NSA offered to help colleagues in London spy on members of the Security Council. “None of these governments was an enemy,” says Hayden. “Despite the fact that it was in the legitimate interest of my government to know how they would vote. It was simply about information that I needed and couldn’t get any other way.”**

And sometimes it catches the Germans too.

END OF PART ONE

*Editor’s note: This is Germany’s version of the CIA.

**Editor’s Note: Although accurately translated, these quotes could not be sourced.