The US embassy, near Berlin's Brandenburg Gate,
was used to monitor communications, the documents suggest
Posted on 10/27/2013 10:07:14 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
Fresh reports in German media based on leaked US intelligence documents are prompting damaging new questions about the extent of US surveillance.
Der Spiegel suggests the US has been spying on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone since 2002.
Another report says Mr Obama was told in 2010 about the surveillance and failed to stop it.
The spy row has led to the worst diplomatic crisis betweeen the two countries in living memory.
Leaked documents say a US listening unit was based in its Berlin embassy - and similar operations were replicated in 80 locations around the world.
The German interior minister has been quoted as saying such an operation, if confirmed, would be illegal.
On Friday, Germany and France said they wanted the US to sign a no-spy deal by the end of the year.
As well as the bugging of Mrs Merkel's phone, there are claims the NSA has monitored millions of telephone calls made by German and French citizens.
...
Mrs Merkel phoned the US president when she first heard of the spying allegations on Wednesday.
President Barack Obama apologised to the German chancellor and promised Mrs Merkel he knew nothing of the alleged phone monitoring and would have stopped it if he had, Der Spiegel reports.
But on Sunday Bild newspaper quoted US intelligence sources as saying NSA head Keith Alexander personally briefed the president about the covert operation targeting Mrs Merkel in 2010.
"Obama did not halt the operation but rather let it continue," the newspaper quoted a senior NSA official as saying.
Her number was still on a surveillance list in 2013.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
or
Obama's chickens coming home to roost?
cluck.. cluck
Analysis
Stephen Evans
BBC News, Berlin
By all accounts, Angela Merkel has been genuinely shocked by the revelations. People close to her told the BBC she felt personally affronted. When Barack Obama was in Berlin in June, they did seem to get on well. She is not good at hiding her feelings, and the glum scowl she used to reserve for Silvio Berlusconi, for example, was replaced by a beam of warmth. They were tactile - he would put his arm round her back; she would clutch his elbow. Perhaps the sense of betrayal is all the greater because of her background in the East German communist regime where spying was pervasive. She might have expected it from the Stasi but not from her new best friend.
Others might feel betrayed, too. ..
...
Things change, things stay the same, Angela.. You should know that.
There goes Obama. Touching people again...
Fasle outrage.
Ask the Germans about Mainz-Kastel, Bad Aibling, Augsburg, the 690ESG at Tempelhof, Tuefelsberg in Berlin, and even today, Ramstein AB and many other US bases—with FULL German cooperation, I might add.
"Plus ça change...."
I think she’s probably legitimately PO’ed.
In the campaign, Mr. Obama thought it his choice and preference to mingle, visit and know more about African and Middle East countries. He made it know from the upstart that top priority and good relationships with Europe was not his thing. THAT is why his first stump was in Egypt. Watching it all unfold...
Foreign Policy’s a hard enough thing to master to begin with.. add an idiot like Obama to the mix.. I hear ya.
He didn’t just stumble out of the gates,
he tripped over himself and then ran the wrong way.
“Another report says Mr Obama was told in 2010 about the surveillance and failed to stop it.”
How can anyone blame Obama? It wasn’t reported in any newspapers at the time, so he clearly knew nothing about it.
He was briefed about the program after he was elected and before he was sworn in.
'The Good Times'
He could have walked across crowds,, now he has to bag his own lunch.
If I were a German leader I would order the US Embassy personnel out of the country for spying.
The community organizer/volunteer just keeps kicking in..
Rome.. and now Berlin are burning..
all he can ask is.. Ya want cheese on that?
The beautiful thing about this one is, this time it’s not only a US issue, so other media - besides the lapdog American ones - will be covering the issue, and they’re now not so subservient to Obama’s wishes.
Horrors, we might actually see the foreign media drag the US Media Obama-sycophants, kicking and screaming, into the realm of real reporting!
She’s just pissed because we weren’t spying on ordinary Germans and passing the info to her interior ministry. After all she would do (did do) the same for us.
Germany was occupied land. It is not anymore. Therefore spying from American bases could come to an end and the bases themselves could disappear soon.
In this photo, GWB looks like an old Russian from the Politburo.
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