Germany FM urges US to clarify spying reports

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier made the plea on Friday and said, “I hope for myself that the American side of the clarification is helpful.”
 
Whistleblower website WikiLeaks released new documents earlier in the week, pointing to NSA spying since the 1990s on high-profile German politicians, including Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel and others in the Ministries of Finance, Economy and Agriculture.
 
Meanwhile, it was reported on Thursday that German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office had called in the US envoy to Berlin over the latest revelations about the scale of NSA spying on a number of senior German officials.
 
US whistleblower and former NSA contractor Edward Snowden had revealed back in 2013 that Merkel’s mobile phone was among the American agency’s targets.
 
Citing documents from WikiLeaks dating back to between 2010 and 2012, German media also reported on July 1 that the NSA did not just tap Merkel’s cell phone calls but also eavesdropped on several German ministers.
 
According to the media reports, the NSA targeted 69 telephone and fax numbers belonging to top officials in the German administration.
 
Also on Friday, Germany’s Der Spiegel newsmagazine filed a complaint with the country’s federal prosecutor after discovering it had also fallen victim to NSA espionage activities.
 
According to Spiegel, the charges stem from a secret memo from the German chancellery in 2011. That summer, CIA agents had warned Guenter Heiss, the chancellery’s intelligence services coordinator, of alleged Spiegel contacts in the German government.
 
Heiss’ deputy, Hans Josef Vorbeck, was specifically mentioned in the memo as allegedly passing information to the magazine, Spiegel reports.