By Jaime Ortega.
U.S. president , Barack Obama , explicitly approved the National Security Agency (NSA ) to spy on German Chancellor Angela Merkel , in 2010, as reported by the German Sunday newspaper Bild am Sonntag, as quoted by a U.S. intelligence source knowledgeable of these operations.
“Obama did not stop the action at the time, and kept the vigilance ,” said a source quoted by the German newspaper . The White House even commissioned a comprehensive report on Merkel. U.S. as the President did not trust the German Chancellor and instructed the NSA to figure out ” who exactly was this woman.”
Following the publication of the first reports where the U.S. the spied Merkel , Obama assured the chancellor in a telephone conversation that he knew that the NSA was spying on her.
However, according to Bild am Sonntag “, the NSA Director Keith Alexander said , Obama personally informed in 2010 of the operation of surveillance and interception of communications initiated to intercept the Chancellor’s voice conversations.
The result of this intelligence report, ended with the NSA agreement to intercept text messages sent to Merkel’s previous mobile phone and telephone conversations. However they were unable to access the, communications from the main line that connectled with the Chancellery.
Direct line to the White House
Unlike usual the ‘ modus operandi ‘, the results of these operations were sent directly to the White House instead of the headquarters of the NSA , from the Fort Meade military base , located in the state of Maryland.
Shipments were made from the fourth floor of the U.S. Embassy in Berlin , located at the Brandenburg Gate , where with the latest technology the NSA personnel recorded the content of the conversations and text messages from the Chancellor.
As revealed on Sunday on the German weekly Der Spiegel , the U.S. government had two spy equipment in Germany with members of the CIA and NSA , one in Frankfurt and a second in Berlin where there was up to 18 agents NSA , according to internal documents of the agency.
Like Merkel , his predecessor , Social Democrat Gerhard Schroeder , was also spied by the NSA when George W. Bush was the tenant of the White House. In his case , he wanted to know ” where are the Germans in terms of ideas “what if ” Schroeder can be of trust ,” according to ‘ Bild am Sonntag ‘ .
The former Social Democratic chancellor was one of the harshest critics of the Bush administration ‘s invasion of Iraq in 2002 and struck up a close relationship with the Russian president , Vladimir Putin , that raised fears in Washington.
Spy Scandal
After Der Spiegel published documents leaked by the former CIA analyst Edward Snowden ,that fled to Russia , it proved showed that Merkel was spied by the NSA . The White House has avoided confirming if it surveilled closely the german chancellor in the past, although reiterated , through his spokesman Jay Carney, did not deny ” watching ” or ” monitoring ” Merkel.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle on Thursday quoted the U.S. ambassador , the same day that the German newspaper ‘Die Welt ‘ revealed that the NSA spied mobile phone Merkel from October 2009 to July 2013. The NSA also monitored the communications of 35 world leaders, according by wakefulness from British newspaper ‘The Guardian’ .
As a result , the Prime Minister , Mariano Rajoy, on Friday ordered the convening of the U.S. ambassador to Spain , James Costs, to request an explanation of the information appeared to suggest that Spain also was the target of massive espionage by NSA communications .
Previously, the president of Brazil , Dilma Rousseff , and Mexican and French counterparts , Enrique Peña Nieto and François Hollande , requested explanations from the Obama administration about the alleged spying on communications. In the case of France specially, where the NSA intercepted tens of thousands of communications.
The European Parliament has condemned the spying and called for action to revoke the new covenant ‘ safe harbor ‘ under which the EU shares banking data with a hundred American companies therefore stopping negotiations to sign a bilateral trade agreement.
At the European Council summit , Merkel and Hollande agreed to promote a “no espionage treaty” applicable to the United States respective intelligence agencies . A German spokesman said Merkel will propose to extend her disconfort in any spying against Germany and its counterparts.
