THE INDEPENDENT: The Central Intelligence Agency recruited a German intelligence official in an apparent quest to get information about Berlin’s probe into U.S. spying on the country and its leaders, and now Germany will have its payback. The interior minister announced that Germany is ditching the no-spy agreement it’s had with the U.S. and Britain since 1945 to launch “360-degree surveillance” of intelligence-gathering operations in the country.
The German double agent was arrested last week on suspicion of being a foreign spy and investigators found an encrypted program disguised as a weather app on his computer. German politicans say he was passing information to the U.S. about the parliament’s investigation into Edward Snowden’s revelations that the National Security Agency eavesdropped on Berlin, including Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone. He is suspected of handing over 218 documents since 2012, and allegedly met an American contact in Austria two or three times and received cash payments of $36,000. He was arrested after offering documents to Berlin’s Russian embassy.
CIA chief John Brennan has requested to brief key congressional members on the debacle that is straining already maxed-out U.S.-German relations. Merkel said early Monday that “if the allegations are true, it would be for me a clear contradiction as to what I consider to be trusting cooperations between agencies and partners.” … (more)
