14 DAY TRIAL // Germany seems to have its reasons for continuously going back and forth between properly investigating the NSA’s spying practices and pretending that nothing ever happened. One of them is the desire to preserve good diplomatic relations, while the second has just been revealed by a German newspaper.
According to Der Spiegel, the National Security Agency hasn’t only been spying on German citizens, but it has also turned the country into its most important base of operations in Europe.
The report is based on documents leaked by Edward Snowden and helps paint a picture of the intelligence agency and the relationship it has developed with Germany over the past 13 years, a connection that continues to grow.
It looks like no other country in Europe works alongside the NSA as Germany does. For instance, back in 2007, the NSA was priding itself in having at least a dozen active collection sites within the country’s borders.
One of the agency’s primary communications hubs in Europe is located on the Ludwig Wolker Street in Wiesbaden, in Building 4009, which is also known as the European Technical Center. Here, the agency intercepts huge amounts of data, which is forwarded to the “NSAers, warfighters and foreign partners in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.”
But that’s not all. The American intelligence agency is currently building an even larger facility just a few miles away. The Consolidated Intelligence Center, which is the name it will bear, will cost the NSA $124 million (€91.38 million) and it will be the place where the specialists in data monitoring will work.
The fact that the two countries actually collaborate this closely is a bit surprising considering that the country’s lawmakers had quite a strong reaction to reports from earlier this year indicating that Chancellor Angela Merkel was being spied on by the NSA, on top of the fact that the agency was collecting tens of millions of data entries each day and keeping an ear on the Bundestag.
Furthermore, when the White House promised Merkel, a close ally, that the spying had stopped, reports indicated that her closest advisor had been targeted instead.
Ever since then, the lawmakers have been investigating the issue and even considered asking Edward Snowden to personally join them and give them more information. There’s been a lot of back and forth on this topic, especially since issuing such an invitation and assuring Snowden’s safe passage would damage the relationship between the United States and Germany.
There is also the question on whether Snowden would take Germany up on the offer, if it were on the table, considering the strong connection between the NSA and the country.