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After a marathon sitting lasting the whole week, the German parliament (Bundestag) agreed upon a law on Friday that will relax restrictions on video surveillance in shops, stadiums and stations. The law, drafted in response to a series of violent crimes in 2016, several attached to terror group ISIS, will make it easier for private companies to install CCTV. Specifically mentioned in the law as places where CCTV will become more prevalent are shopping centers, the area in front of football stadiums, and parking lots. […] The package of laws passed by the Bundestag also allows for police to use...

Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière is planning a major limitation of privacy rights in Germany, say data protection groups. Germans will no longer have the right to know what data about them is being collected. A draft law released by the German union for data protection (DVD) this week revealed that the interior ministry was proposing to drastically limit the powers of Germany’s data protection authorities, banning them from investigating suspected breaches of people’s medical and legal records. As well as expanding video surveillance with facial recognition software, the bill would limit the government’s own data protection commissioners to checking...

BERLIN — Leaders and citizens in Germany, one of America’s closest allies, simmered with barely contained fury on Thursday over reports that American intelligence had tapped into Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cellphone, the latest diplomatic fallout from the documents harvested by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden. In an unusual move between staunch allies, Germany summoned the United States ambassador over the claims. The damage to core American relationships continues to mount.

German lawmakers have approved a bill that allows the country’s foreign intelligence agency to spy on European Union institutions and fellow EU member states. The legislation passed Friday is part of a range of measures meant to improve oversight of espionage in the wake of the revelations by former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. […] Critics say that instead of clamping down on questionable BND activity, the law will merely legalize them. …

The BND, Germany’s version of the CIA, has been accused of massive breaches of the constitution in a leaked report by the government’s representative for data protection. “The BND [Bundesnachrichtendienst] systematically lifted and used personal data without a legal basis to do so,” wrote Federal Data Protection Commissioner Andrea Voßhoff in a report seen by public broadcasters NDR and WDR. Voßhoff is responsible for ensuring that government agencies do not infringe on German citizens’ legal rights when using their personal data. …

Germany's Federal government has announced it's new "trojan horse" computer software which will allow it to spy on citizens computers and smartphones. The German Interior Ministry has formally announced that they have created a new "Bundestrojaner" or government trojan horse software to enable them to track the communications of anyone that downloads it according to the German press, in addition to purchasing an "off the shelf" tool from a company which is said to help authoritarian regimes track their citizens. Trojan horse software is malicious software (often called malware) that is disguised as something innocent like a free screen saver...

Germany's intelligence agency eavesdropped on many of the country's closest European allies, including France, Sweden, Italy, Spain and Britain, according to new reports. Among the targets are several embassies in Germany, and international organizations such as the Red Cross, Der Spiegel reported on Saturday. [...] Spiegel, without giving any sources, said Saturday that "the BND had systematically spied on 'allies' across the world, including on the interior ministries of the United States, Poland, Austria, Denmark and Croatia." ...

The German intelligence service has spied on European and American embassies in ways that may have been beyond its mandate, German media ARD and Spiegel Online reported on Wednesday (14 October). The Bundesnachtrichtendienst (BND) reportedly targeted French and US institutions and eavesdropped on them to acquire information about countries like Afghanistan. The news follows reports in April that the BND spied on France and the European Commission on behalf of the US’ National Security Agency (NSA). But according to the new reports, BND also spied on allies on its own initiative. …

Federal prosecutors have brought charges against a former worker at Germany’s foreign intelligence agency who is suspected of passing information to American spies. The 32-year-old former Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) worker is accused of treason, infringing official secrets and corruption after passing secrets to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in exchange for cash. […] The alleged spy joined the BND in 2007 and worked for the CIA from 2008, they said. He passed documents and confidential internal information about the work and personnel of the BND to his American handlers in exchange for payments totaling €95,000. A search of the accused’s computer...

A German federal court has ruled that the country’s spy agency is under no obligation to divulge to the media a list of names compiled from search terms provided to it by the U.S. National Security Agency. A newspaper publisher sought an injunction forcing the Germany agency, the BND, to disclose information about what German companies and citizens were on the list after the spy agency refused to answer questions. …

The German-American friendship no longer exists. It may still remain between citizens of both countries, but not between their governments. Perhaps it has always been an illusion; perhaps the United States pulled away over the course of time. But what binds these two nations today cannot be considered friendship. Openness and fairness are part of the essence of friendship, which is about mutual respect and trust. A quarter century after the United States helped the German people restore their national unity, little remains of this friendship. As new documents from WikiLeaks and reporting by Spiegel show, the NSA has been...

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office Thursday asked the US ambassador to discuss new allegations about NSA spying, a German government source said. “We confirm that US ambassador [John] Emerson was invited to the chancellery to talk,” the German government source told AFP, after the Frankfurter Allgemeine daily said Merkel’s chief of staff Peter Altmaier had asked for the meeting. On Wednesday Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that new documents released by WikiLeaks show that the United States did not just tap German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone but also eavesdropped on several ministers. …

President Barack Obama is aiming to show unity with Western allies on global challenges during an overnight trip to Germany, especially Chancellor Angela Merkel amid enduring anti-Americanism in her country over U.S. spying programs. Obama and Merkel plan to open his visit Sunday with a public display of friendliness, delivering remarks about the U.S.-German alliance before taking a walk through the picturesque alpine village of Kruen to sample the Bavarian food and sights. Then the two plan to meet privately at the nearby site of the two-day summit of the Group of Seven leading industrial nations to coordinate their agenda...

It was obvious from its construction speed just how important the new site in Bavaria was to the Americans. Only 4½ months after it was begun, the new surveillance-proof building at the Mangfall Kaserne in Bad Aibling was finished. The structure had a metal exterior and no windows, which led to its derogatory nickname among members of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the German foreign intelligence agency: The “tin can.” The construction project was an expression of an especially close and trusting cooperation between the American National Security Agency (NSA) and the BND. Bad Aibling had formerly been a base for US...

British spies have warned the government they may cut off ties with their German counterparts over a parliamentary inquiry into spying by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). Focus magazine reported on Thursday that top spies at Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) are concerned that the Bundestag’s (German parliament) inquiry into the NSA could uncover secrets about how they cooperate with their German allies. Gerhard Schindler, head of Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), reportedly told the leaders of the inquiry about the increased tension with his British colleagues on Wednesday evening. “Without information from British signals intelligence, we would...

Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) collects 220 million pieces of information about foreign phone calls and SMS every day, Zeit Online reported on Friday. According to BND documents seen by journalists, five locations around Germany are used to collect the millions of so-called “metadata” about foreigners’ phone calls. It is not yet clear where the BND obtains this much data. But the parliamentary committee at the Bundestag (German parliament) investigating surveillance by the US National Security Agency (NSA) has established that the BND taps satellite communications and internet cables. …

German lawmakers probing the surveillance activities of the U.S. National Security Agency have uncovered a legal loophole that allows the country’s foreign intelligence agency to spy on its own citizens. The agency, known by its German acronym BND, is normally forbidden from eavesdropping on Germans or German companies. But a former BND lawyer told Parliament this week that Germans aren’t protected while working abroad for foreign companies. …

The German secret service listened in on at least one of Hillary Clinton’s telephone calls when she was US secretary of state, German media reported Friday. The Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) daily and regional public broadcasters NDR and WDR said documents passed to the CIA by one of its moles inside German intelligence show it eavesdropped on Clinton while she was on a US government plane. […] According to the reports, the Clinton intercept was “not an isolated case”, with the German government apparently giving permission for “spying on a NATO partner”, although it was unclear which of its allies was...

Germany’s domestic intelligence service wants to increase surveillance on users of social networks such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, but stressed it would only target terrorists and extremists. […] But the Süddeutsche Zeitung had reported that the BfV’s chief, Hans-Georg Maaßen, wanted to develop a system which collected “large amounts of online data”. …