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February 24, 2014

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NSA steps up surveillance of senior German officials

The US National Security Agency has stepped up its surveillance of senior German government officials since being ordered by President Barack Obama to halt its spying on Chancellor Angela Merkel, Bild am Sonntag paper reported yesterday.

Revelations last year about mass US surveillance in Germany, in particular of Merkel’s mobile phone, shocked Germans and sparked the most serious dispute between the transatlantic allies in a decade.

The newspaper said its information stemmed from a high-ranking NSA employee in Germany and that those being spied on included Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, a close confidant of Merkel.

“We have had the order not to miss out on any information now that we are no longer able to monitor the chancellor’s communication directly,” it quoted the NSA employee as saying.

A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said it would not comment on the “allegations of unnamed individuals.”

To calm the uproar over US surveillance abroad, Obama in January banned US eavesdropping on the leaders of close friends and allies of Washington.

Berlin has been pushing, so far in vain, for a “no-spy” deal with Washington. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is due to visit the United States on Thursday but he has said he doubts such an agreement would have much effect.

 


 

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