14 DAY TRIAL // A Der Spiegel report reveals that the German Secret Service (BND) has been spying on allies and other international organizations, sometimes sharing information with its US counterpart, the NSA.
Ironically, the report comes out after German authorities has multiple times criticized the NSA's actions of spying on its allies, such as France, Japan, and even Germany's Chancellor, Angela Merkel.
Spiegel reports that, in past years, Germany's BND carried out numerous operations that targeted officials from the United States, France, Great Britain, Sweden, Portugal, Greece, Spain, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, and even the Vatican.
This included embassies, consulates, and the headquarters of international organizations like the Red Cross, Care International, and Oxfam.
Apparently, BND was using a loophole in German law that prohibited internal services from wiretapping German telecommunications without a warrant. The law did not cover embassies and other diplomatic entities, which technically are not part of Germany's borders, being sovereign territories in their own right, part of the country that they represent.
Germany spied on the United States Department of the Interior
Der Spiegel came across this information after German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the Bundestag Parliamentary Control Panel about BND's operations.
The Bundestag's Parliamentary Control Panel is the legal entity in charge of overseeing the country's espionage efforts.
In the same meeting, it was revealed that some of the BND's targets were the United States Department of the Interior. Other targets included the interior ministries of EU member states like Austria, Denmark, Croatia, and Poland.
Despite the numerous state-level pacts and agreements, US and Germany spying agencies have not been shy about spying on each other.
Only a few weeks ago, we reported that a variant of the Regin spyware was found on the laptop of one of Angela Merkel's aides. The Regin spyware is part of the NSA's WARRIORPRIDE hacking framework, as Edward Snowden's revelations told us.