The chapter is only a few pages long, but it addresses a potentially explosive suspicion: Did Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the BND, spy on its most important partner, the United States, in the past?
For Chancellor Angela Merkel's government, the answer is clear. The BND has never spied on the United States, members of both the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and their government coalition partner, the center-left Social Democrats, are fond of saying, quoting former BND President Gerhard Schindler. And if it was true, then it was only a "coincidental capture" of data, that has since been deleted.
After three years of work, the German parliament committee of inquiry investigating NSA spying on Germany will release its final report next week. It will also contain a chapter drafted by the coalition on "findings about EU and NATO partners." The committee, the draft version of the report states, had no doubts about the statements made about the U.S.
But it should.
Documents that SPIEGEL has been able to review show that the BND, until a few years ago, actually had considerable interest in the United States as a target of espionage. The document states that just under 4,000 search terms, or selectors, were directed against American targets between 1998 and 2006. It is unknown whether they continued to be used after those dates.
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