The NSA Lied to the German Government

The United States has lied at least twice to its German ally. In 2002, the Americans promised not to eavesdrop on the telecommunications of German citizens, then in the same year began monitoring Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone. In July, American intelligence again promised to abide by all agreements between the two nations.

In tapping Chancellor Merkel’s cell phone, the NSA clearly broke an intergovernmental agreement between the U.S. and Germany. In addition, the NSA lied to its German ally at least twice in so doing, causing considerable consternation in German government circles.

In April 2002, the NSA guaranteed in a written memorandum of agreement that it would abide by German laws governing the privacy of telephonic and electronic communications. NSA monitoring of Merkel’s cell phone began that same year.

Then Chancellery Minister Ronald Pofalla cited the agreement in a press statement last summer and assured that the Americans were abiding by German statutes and not eavesdropping on any communications between German citizens.

If Merkel’s cell phone was tapped, that’s espionage and is punishable by law. The German public would like to know the extent of communications data that was collected by the NSA—but the German prosecutors’ reaction clearly indicates a police-state mentality.

The demand that German law had to be adhered to on German soil is one that Chancellor Merkel has repeatedly made ever since the start of the NSA affair. On July 23, 2013—prior to the news that Merkel’s cell phone had been compromised—the NSA had again assured Germany in writing that it was doing nothing damaging to German interests. Its written statement assured Germany that it was abiding by all agreements and had done so in the past as well.

Both these assurances were used as justification for the German government to absolve the United States of all public charges of wrongdoing made last August. Meanwhile, Germany reminded the U.S. that its earlier statements had not been true and that the bonds of trust between the two countries had been shaken.

Green Party politician Hans-Christian Ströbele, also a member of the parliamentary control commission, stated that the U.S. had clearly broken its 2002 agreement with Germany and lied again in writing the following summer. One interpretation of the agreement was that it didn’t cover all of Germany but only the former NSA listening station at Bad Aibling, prompting one NSA critic to remark, “We must have misunderstood that.”

Recently, U.S. intelligence agencies have assured that German citizens were not being monitored from the secret Dagger Complex facility near Darmstadt, nor from the Wiesbaden headquarters compound. The U.S. embassy in Berlin—from which Chancellor Merkel was tracked—wasn’t mentioned in the new assurances.