By Nadia Prupis
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) took part in a spying operation against Germany that led to the arrest of a double agent and has jeopardized its alliance with the U.S., Reuters reports.
German authorities last week arrested an alleged "double agent" who confessed that he was paid by U.S. agents to spy on the parliamentary investigation into NSA surveillance of German citizens and officials.
The suspect, who also worked for Germany's federal intelligence service, known as the BND, was initially detained for being in contact with Russian agents, but later admitted that he had been contracted by U.S. authorities.
"If the reports are correct, it would be a serious case," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a press conference Monday. CIA director John Brennan has requested to brief key members of Congress on the incident.
Edward Snowden's release of NSA documents last year revealed that Merkel was among the foreign officials targeted in the widespread surveillance. The White House agreed to stop monitoring her cell phone, but refused to a broader "no spy" pact with Berlin.
The recent incident further threatens U.S.-Germany ties. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the relationship between the two allies is "incredibly important" and a "very close partnership that we have on a range of security issues, including some intelligence issues."
"All of those things are high priorities not just to this administration, but to this country. So we're going to work with the Germans to resolve this situation appropriately," Earnest said.
Last week's investigation heard testimony from Thomas Drake and William Binney, two U.S. whistleblowers who previously worked for the NSA but objected to the agency's oppressive practices. Binney described the NSA as having a "totalitarian mentality."
The CIA declined to comment on the matter. It is still unclear if and when Brennan's briefing with Congress will take place.
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Mirrored from Commondreams.org
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Related video:
Euronews: German intelligence employee arrested for spying for US
I saw where the French financial minister is threatening trading in Euros, not dollars, which apparently succeeded in calling Foggy Bottom’s bluff – a promise to reduce or eliminate the huge fine against Barnabas if France please please doesn’t move away from the dollar. Any readers think Merkel will ever suck it up and call the bluff? All she has to do is start talking about closing spy installations and bases.
Does anyone know why Merkel signed on to “her” WaPo OpEd piece supporting the Iraq invasion in the weeks before the war? She was opposition leader at the time and she may have wanted to burnish her foreign affairs reputation in Germany and curry favor in Washington. However, she obviously did not write it — her English isn’t that good. If she didn’t write it , who did? How did it get into the WaPo? Is the German official line about her entry into the higher circles in Germany (they claim her promise and East German background caught Helmut Kohl’s eye) legit? East Germany still officially existed then, and her father had left the West for the East. two decades earlier. Wasn’t Kohl afraid she was an East Block agent? This was only 15 years after Willy Brandt was brought down by an East Block spy in his cabinet. Did someone…. something…. very big … on the other side of the Atlantic, … vouch for her credibility? In short, does the US intelligence apparatus have some measure of control over her?
Merkels piece was most likely translated by someone working for her party, the CDU.
No idea why she insisted on being so much in favor of the Iraq war and basically parotted even the most outrages claims of the Bush administration. Could be, that she simply failed to understand the public attitude towards the whole thing. She usually sucks at reading the public.
Merkel was allowed to go to university in East Germany and could go to Russia in order to study. In East Germany, people could not choose their jobs, but the communist party decided that. If you could study, your parents had to be very well connected. Merkel was also very active in the youth movement and already a politician when the wall fell.
It is quite possibly, that Kohl accepted quite a few east german politicians (mostly from the ‘pseudo opposition), because he considered them easy to control. Maybe he had knowledge about their shadowy past. The real dissidents almost exclusively refused to join his party.
There is an (unconfirmed!) rumor, that some US secret service ‘rescued’ tons of documents from the stasi and returned only a few to Germany, thus possibly gaining means of blackmailing Merkel. But this might also just be a wild conspiracy theory.
Please run a story on this highly offensive information: link to firstlook.org
[…] German who spied on Parliament for NSA recruited by CIA […]
Tip of the iceberg. There’s plenty more where this is coming from, in possibly every country on earth (slight exaggeration, I hope), even in the US govt. which has been infiltrated and controlled remotely by CIA and other linked/related agencies. The puppet masters and their (elected) puppets.