Global surveillance and espionage affair

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GCHQ headquarters in Cheltenham , UK

The global surveillance and espionage affair arose from the revelations of top secret documents of the National Security Agency (NSA) and subsequent publications and international reactions to them. The US whistleblower and former secret service employee Edward Snowden revealed in early June 2013 how the United States and the United Kingdom have been monitoring telecommunications and especially the Internet on a global scale and independently of suspicion since 2007 at the latest . As justification, politicians and secret service heads of the two countries cite that the measures will prevent terrorist attacks.

The data obtained in this way are stored in advance . Buildings and agencies of the European Union as well as the United Nations are said to have been spied on with the help of bugs . In addition, numerous leading politicians, including those from allied states, were wiretapped . Some of their email accounts were breached. In the course of the affair , the media reported on similar espionage activities by other countries. The events led to considerable diplomatic tensions in some cases , for example Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff canceled a visit to the United States, and the Federal Republic of Germany called the US ambassador for the first time in its history . In several affected countries, civil rights organizations protested against the mass surveillance of the population and warned of the dangers of a surveillance state , and an ongoing media debate developed. The German Bundestag set up the NSA committee of inquiry on behalf of all parliamentary groups in order to "[...] clarify the extent and background of the spying by foreign secret services in Germany".

History of the revelations

Edward Snowden flew from Hawaii to Hong Kong on May 20, 2013 , where he sought asylum . Between June 1 and June 6, Snowden gave various NSA documents and a video interview to Guardian reporters Glenn Greenwald and Ewen MacAskill and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras in Hong Kong , which was released on June 9. In the interview he talked about his motivation and about the documents he has. He had the estimated 1.7 million documents gathered from the NSA's internal data network using a web crawler .

In the course of the first revelations, the left-liberal British daily The Guardian and the US daily The Washington Post published documents and information about the previously unknown US programs for monitoring global Internet communications , PRISM and Boundless Informant . On June 8, 2013, The Guardian reported on Boundless Informant. According to the newspaper, more than 70,000 secret service reports are said to have been created based on the Internet analysis.

It was only on the following day, June 9th, that Edward Snowden, who until mid-May worked as a system administrator for the NSA at the Kunia Regional SIGINT Operations Center in Hawaii on behalf of the US consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton , revealed his identity as an informant.

In Hong Kong, he interviewed the South China Morning Post on June 12 and presented documents to the newspaper that the NSA had been hacking network backbones in Hong Kong and China since 2009 in order to steal millions of text messages . On Sunday, June 23, Snowden, coming from Hong Kong, reached Moscow-Sheremetyevo Airport , where he stayed in the transit area in a “compact hotel” (with Internet connection) for several weeks.

Der Spiegel published an interview on July 7th, which Snowden had conducted with Jacob Appelbaum and Laura Poitras by encrypted email via Lavabit , shortly before he revealed himself to be a whistleblower. In it he stated, among other things, that the NSA was "in cahoots with the Germans".

Monitoring programs and systems

In the course of the surveillance and espionage affair, several monitoring programs and systems became known, including PRISM , Boundless Informant , Tempora , XKeyscore , Mail Isolation Control and Tracking , FAIRVIEW , Stellarwind ( PSP ), Genie , Bullrun and CO-TRAVELER Analytics .

ICREACH is used as the singular point of access for many ( meta ) data .

Worldwide automated mass surveillance

The articles Globale_Überwachungs-_und_Spionageaffäre # Weltweit_automatisiert_Massenwissenschaften and Worldwide automated mass surveillance overlap thematically. Help me to better differentiate or merge the articles (→  instructions ) . To do this, take part in the relevant redundancy discussion . Please remove this module only after the redundancy has been completely processed and do not forget to include the relevant entry on the redundancy discussion page{{ Done | 1 = ~~~~}}to mark. DrLee ( discussion ) 18:06, Jan. 8, 2014 (CET)
Utah Data Center from the Air (June 2014)
Location and landing points of the transatlantic submarine cable TAT-14
Routes and landing points of the SEA-ME-WE 3 sea ​​cable
Routes and landing points of the SEA-ME-WE 4 sea ​​cable
Routes and landing points of the SEA-ME-WE 5 sea ​​cable

United States

The Utah Data Center , located at Camp Williams south of the city of Bluffdale , Utah , is a fusion center under construction of the United States Intelligence Community (IC). The building owner of the facility is the NSA. The exact purpose of the facility is kept secret; it is intended to support the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI). The memory space of the system varies depending on the information between a Yottabyte (1 YB = 10 24 bytes, which corresponds to when said system costs about 0.17 per cent terabytes, source: the mirror), 5 Zettabyte (1 ZB = 10 21 bytes = 1 Billion terabytes; source: NPR) or only approx. 3–12 exabytes (1 EB = 10 18 bytes = 1 million terabytes; with a price of approx. 170 dollars per terabyte, source: Forbes). Converted to the world population, this would correspond to a data volume of around 140 gigabytes to 1.4 megabytes per person. This enables the step towards complete monitoring and storage of worldwide communication.

In the summer of 2013, the amount of data generated as part of the US surveillance was more than 29 petabytes per day.

In the United States, the secret FISA court ordered that the telecommunications company Verizon Communications , based on the USA PATRIOT Act , must transfer all metadata of its US customers to the NSA. This order is issued for 90 days and is routinely extended. It is not known whether a similar order has been made for other telecommunications companies. With the decision of August 29, 2013, the court determined that the disclosure of such data does not violate the US Constitution and that no search and no court order is necessary.

In 2010, the NSA began creating social networks from collected US metadata and overseas surveillance data from public, commercial and other sources, according to the New York Times . The aim was to uncover connections between Americans and target persons abroad.

In November 2013 it became known that the NSA had infiltrated 50,000 computer networks worldwide with malware and that it had set itself the goal of having access to 85,000 systems by the end of 2013.

Five Eyes (UKUSA)

The "five eyes" of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States

The British GCHQ is said to have gained access to more than 200 fiber optic cables worldwide. In 2012, GCHQ's data processing system is said to have been able to process 600 million telephone events per day. It is believed that Vodafone Cable , British Telecommunications (BT) , Verizon Business and the network operators Level 3 , Interoute , Viatel and Global Crossing are acting on the instructions of the British government.

The secret service thus theoretically had access to communication links between Europe and North America, via the submarine cables TAT-14 and Atlantic Crossing 1 , and within Europe as well as in Germany. The Pan-European-Crossing PEC submarine cable is important for communication in Europe . The submarine cable SEA-ME-WE 3 , which runs from northern Germany to the Strait of Gibraltar, via Egypt, Djibouti (East Africa), via Singapore to Japan and Australia, is important for communication between Europe, East Africa and the Asian Pacific states.

The Australian intelligence service Defense Signals Directorate is helping to tap the "SEA-ME-WE 3" cable under the UKUSA agreement (Five Eyes). The secret services of Singapore and Australia work together here (the submarine cable SEA-ME-WE 4 ends in Singapore ). There are other surveillance and listening systems in Australia, such as Pine Gap and the Shoal Bay Receiving Station , which exchange data with the NSA. In Canada, the Communications Security Establishment is the authority responsible for these tasks.

In addition, the intelligence services of Canada ( Communications Security Establishment Canada ) and New Zealand ( Government Communications Security Bureau ) are among the "Five Eyes".

In 2012, 657 "data transfers" were made to British secret services by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

According to a report published by Spiegel , it should have been possible for the NSA to gain access to the Blackberry mail system. In the Belgacom scandal , it became known that the British GCHQ succeeded in gaining access to Belgacom's central roaming routers in order to carry out man-in-the-middle attacks , among other things .

According to the news magazine Der Spiegel , the NSA has also managed to obtain information about the network management of the SEA-ME-WE 4 submarine cable system.

Brazil

According to a report by the Brazilian newspaper O Globo, the NSA is said to have gained access to the Brazilian telecommunications network "over the years and systematically". Millions of emails and phone calls have been tapped, according to an article written by Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald together with reporters from O Globo . The volume of data is constant and large, which makes Brazil stand out in Latin America. Brazil decided to phone the United Nations (UN) in response to US wiretapping. The aim is an initiative to better protect the privacy of Internet users. However, it is not clear whether the NSA has an increased interest in Brazilian data or whether Brazil is just the place where the data is passed to the NSA, since Brazil is an important international hub for telecommunications submarine cables and a satellite listening station near the capital Brasília is located.

France

SIGINT system of the DGSE in Domme in south-west France, which is part of the Frenchelon program

The French daily Le Monde reported in July 2013 that the French foreign intelligence service Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE) is recording, storing and making available to French authorities and other French intelligence services on a large scale metadata about electronic communications and Internet use by the French. According to Edward Snowden's documents, France concluded a cooperation agreement with the “Five Eyes” some time ago under the code name “Luster” and, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, should systematically provide them with information. At the end of October 2013, Edward Snowden's documents revealed that the NSA had obtained surveillance data from France. This aroused great protest in France. A few days later, the director of the NSA testified in the US Congress that the 70 million telephone calls recorded between December 2012 and January 2013 had been collected by French secret services outside the country and shared with the NSA.

Spain

In addition to spying on members of the Spanish government from December 2012 to the end of January 2013, the NSA also collected data from 60.5 million telephone calls and other personal data from Internet and e-mail services, Facebook and Twitter. Keith B. Alexander , director of the NSA, told the US Congress that the bulk data had been collected by Spanish intelligence agencies outside the country and shared with the NSA.

Germany

In Germany, from 2007 to 2013 the main tasks of the NSA were Strategic Mission J ( industrial espionage ) and Strategic Mission K (monitoring of political leaders).

Technical reconnaissance has been an integral part of the US services in the FRG since it has existed; For this purpose a network of partner services was set up early on. Adenauer already signed a surveillance reservation, which still granted the former occupying powers the right to control domestic and foreign postal and telecommunications traffic. Among the German services, the BND has always been the main partner for this practice; In 1993 he was granted the exclusive right to exchange information with the partner services. The news magazine Der Spiegel wrote in February 1989: Four years after George Orwell had written down his dystopia "1984", in 1952, the US government founded a secret organization of Orwell's format, which from then on in Europe, by Allied special rights authorized to operate largely at his own discretion. Telecommunications secrecy does not apply in the FRG: “Whoever picks up the phone between the North Sea and the Alps has to be aware that the NSA is also in contact - Freund is listening.” That on West German soil “everyone, apparently with the knowledge and approval of the federal government Beeper is tapped ”, is considered safe by intelligence experts.

In the worldwide surveillance of electronic voice and data communication without suspicion, Germany is today an important partner of the NSA and the US companies that support it. At the same time, the Germans are being monitored by the western partners. Der Spiegel writes: “A confidential classification shows that the NSA sees the Federal Republic as a partner, but also as a target. According to this, Germany is one of the so-called third-class partners. Only Canada, Australia, Great Britain and New Zealand, which are listed as second-class partners, are expressly excluded from espionage attacks. 'We can attack the signals of most foreign third-class partners - and we do so too', it said in a presentation. "

NSA locations in Germany

Radomfeld of the former Bad Aibling Station , (BND code name: Hortensie III, abbreviation: 3 D 30), currently in use (as of May 2015). These were part of the worldwide spy network Echelon until 2004 .

Since 1952, the Upper Bavarian town of Bad Aibling has had a listening station operated by the NSA ( Field Station 81 ). The facility was also used by British and German secret services and closed in 2004 under pressure from the European Union , individual departments were relocated to Griesheim in the Dagger Complex and to the August Euler airfield . Parts of the facilities are still operated today by the Federal Intelligence Service, whose telecommunications center is stationed in a neighboring Bundeswehr barracks. According to Edward Snowden, "NSA eavesdropping specialists maintain their own communications center and a direct electronic connection to the NSA's data network on the grounds of the Mangfall barracks in Bad Aibling."

On July 7, 2013, Der Spiegel pointed out that the armed forces of the United States were building a Consolidated Intelligence Center (German: "United Intelligence Center") in Wiesbaden , which, after completion at the end of 2015, should also be used by the NSA. The staff of the Dagger complex will also be relocated there. This includes around 1100 “Intelligence Professionals” and “Special Security Officers”.

Dagger Complex as a 180 ° panorama

Cooperation between the BND and the NSA

In addition, the Spiegel reports that the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) transmitted a large amount of metadata from its own telecommunications intelligence to the American secret service NSA. Metadata is basically to be understood as connection data for phone calls, e-mails, SMS and chat contributions - for example, when which connection was connected to which connection for how long. According to statistics that Der Spiegel was able to see, up to 20 million telephone connections and around 10 million Internet data records from Germany are saved on normal days. In December 2012, around 500 million metadata are said to have been recorded in Bad Aibling. On peak days like January 7, 2013, the NSA monitored around 60 million telephone calls in Germany.

The German foreign secret service had admitted this disclosure, but assured that this data would be "cleaned up" beforehand to remove any personal data from German citizens. The time , according to this .de about all e-mail addresses ending and filtered out all phone numbers with the country code +49. The powers of the German foreign secret service are essentially regulated in two laws: the so-called G-10 law and the BND law . On April 28, 2002, a “Memorandum of Agreement” was signed between the BND and the NSA for future cooperation on the establishment of a joint SIGINT office in Bad Aibling, the exact content of which is secret. This happened at about the same time as other German legislative changes as part of the German contribution to the US war on terror . This agreement is the current basis for cooperation between the BND and the NSA.

In May 2015 Zeit Online reported that the BND is transmitting far more metadata to the NSA than is known. Of the 6.6 billion metadata that the BND intercepts every month, up to 1.3 billion metadata is passed on to the NSA. These are supposedly filtered based on G-10 legislation , but those responsible on the NSA committee of inquiry admitted that the filters did not work properly. With the help of this BND metadata, the NSA and CIA create targets for combat drones , among other things , which are used by Ramstein Air Base in Ramstein-Miesenbach as an interface for planning and controlling operations against suspected terrorists in Africa and the Middle East .

According to research by the NDR and the Süddeutsche Zeitung , statements from asylum seekers about the security situation in their home countries are collected by German secret service agents from the “Main Office for Interviewing” (HBW) (an institution that works closely with the Federal Intelligence Service and reports directly to the Chancellery) and then passed on from the BND to US and UK military intelligence. There they also flow into target acquisition for US killings with combat drones in crisis areas such as Somalia or Iraq.

As Spiegel reported in its 25/2014 issue, there are currently more than 200 US agents with official diplomatic status in Germany, including in Bad Aibling (as of June 2014). The US agents were able to target German citizens through an exception clause if terrorist activities were evident. The Snowden material also shows that an NSA report in January 2005 praised the findings from Germany. They are responsible for the arrest or killing of more than 40 suspected terrorists.

BND-NSA affair 2014/2015: Operation Eikonal

The BND listens at the DE-CIX Internet hub in Frankfurt under the name Operation Eikonal and, at least between 2004 and 2008, forwarded large amounts of the raw data intercepted there directly to the NSA, reports Süddeutsche Zeitung , NDR and WDR in June and October 2014. Data from Germans should have been filtered out beforehand, partly manually. Allegedly, the operation is said to have been stopped by the then BND boss Ernst Uhrlau in 2007 against the will of the NSA. The Chancellery had come to the conclusion that the action was "politically far too sensitive".

During this operation, neither the parliamentary control body nor the Bundestag commission, which is responsible for wiretapping by the secret services, was ever informed. According to the Bundestag MP and member of the NSA committee of inquiry , Christian Flisek , Operation Eikonal ended in 2008 because the BND allegedly used such strong data filters that the remaining material was of little interest to the NSA. However, the witness "WK" confirmed the continuation of the methodology on November 13, 2014 in the 22nd meeting of the NSA committee of inquiry:

“Eikonal included selective recording of international-international transit traffic. Don't forget time: Afghanistan, terrorism reconnaissance. Selected data was recorded and automatically forwarded. More precise only non-public (Lower Austria), we are still doing the method. "

- Live blog from the 22nd session of the NSA Committee of Inquiry

On April 23, 2015, media reported the extent of Operation Eikonal. On the basis of an application for evidence by the parliamentary groups, it was investigated how many of the 800,000 selectors ( IP addresses , email addresses, telephone numbers, geographic coordinates , MAC addresses ) were directed against German and European interests. These selectors were automatically assigned to the BND by the NSA over the course of 10 years; several times a day a BND server connected to an NSA server and downloaded new selectors. The knowledge gained was then passed on to the NSA.

As early as 2013, after the Snowden documents were published, the BND compiled a list of all potentially problematic selectors. It comprised 2,000 illegal selectors that were used and not sorted out. In the course of the new investigations from March to May 2015, another 459,000 such selectors were found, for example European politicians and companies. Of these, only 400 were sorted out. At the moment (as of May 2015) it is unclear how many of these selectors were rejected or executed by the BND, whether there are more and what exactly they are. Der Spiegel reported on May 15, 2015 that more than half of the 40,000 selectors that were found in March 2015 were also active, i.e. they were actually used to research authorities, companies and other destinations in Europe.

The BND facilities in Bad Aibling, Bavaria, were used to spy on high-ranking officials from the French Foreign Ministry , the Presidential Staff and the EU Commission . Companies are mainly affected because the US allegedly looked for evidence of illegal export transactions. The number of selectors supplied by the USA since the beginning of the cooperation was also known; In 2013 alone there were 690,000 telephone numbers and 7.8 million IP search terms, reported the research network of Süddeutscher Zeitung, NDR and WDR on April 30th.

The FAZ reported on April 27, 2015 that documents that were available to the NSA committee of inquiry clearly show that the Chancellery had been informed and apparently tolerated the NSA's espionage activities. The Bild quotes a participant with the following statement: "At that time they said: 'We need the information from the Americans, that's how it works, we don't want to endanger the cooperation'". The Chancellery knew that the NSA wanted to spy on Germans and Europeans and let it happen, according to the FAZ .

The Focus also wrote on April 27, 2015 “that the allegations specifically concern at least two documents that the BND sent to the Chancellery in 2008 and 2010. In both cases, the Chancellery should be prepared for high-level talks with US intelligence officials. ”It was about the preparation of a trip to the USA by Thomas de Maizière , head of the Chancellery at the time , who was“ very likely ”informed. In any case, today's (as of April 2015) BND Vice Guido Müller and Günter Heiss , who is still responsible for secret services in the Chancellery , were inaugurated . The Focus also named 2010 as the point in time "since the Chancellor's Office knew at the latest that many of these goals massively violated German interests, but nothing was done."

The NSA spied out German and European targets until at least 2013. The federal government confirmed this on May 4, 2015 in a secret paper which the ZDF magazine Frontal21 was able to view. Accordingly, the BND found on August 26, 2013 that the NSA was spying out current e-mail addresses of European politicians, ministries of European member states, EU institutions, but also representatives of German companies. The paper admitted that American espionage practices went against German interests.

Klaus Landefeld, Advisory Board of DE-CIX Management GmbH , stated in the NSA investigation committee that the BND is not only interested in lines outside Germany, such as in the Arab region, but also in lines within Germany, on which over 90 percent of the traffic is carried the fundamental rights are protected. One could “absolutely not selectively” decide what “is German or not” on the Internet. The 20 percent rule, according to which secret services are allowed to divert one fifth of the line capacity, would not actually be practiced, Landefeld said. The providers lay out their lines in such a way that they are usually only used to 30 or 40 percent. With the 20 percent rule, you end up with 50 to 60 percent of the through traffic, which is not in accordance with the law. He also said that the most secure protection against surveillance is end-to-end encryption of the data. That is “the only thing that helps. Everything else is illusory, ”says Landefeld.

Publication of the list of selectors

At the beginning of July 2015, WikiLeaks published the NSA's spying targets in German ministries, as well as eavesdropping records of confidential talks by Chancellor Merkel.

There are 69 government telephone numbers on the NSA watch list, particularly those from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Agriculture, including Angela Merkel's personal assistant. As early as 2013 it was known that a cell phone used by the Chancellor had been tapped.

The existence of selectors shows on the one hand that the services do not listen in indiscriminately and without cause, but rather selectively; on the other hand, they show how the services operate targeted economic and political espionage.

In cooperation with the NSA, the BND examines the selectors presented and deleted those relating to German participants.

Cooperation between the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the NSA

According to a report in the Süddeutsche Zeitung on September 13, 2013, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) regularly sends confidential data to the NSA and works with eight other US services. According to a confidential paper, the Federal Office sent 864 records to the NSA in 2012. Information was passed on to the NSA in 1163 cases in 2013 and 400 cases in the first quarter of 2014. In return, the BfV received 4,700 connection data over the past four years. The BfV is currently testing the XKeyscore monitoring software . The Süddeutsche Zeitung writes: "Should the secret service use the program in regular operation, the BfV has undertaken to share all findings with the NSA." This had promised the NSA BfV President Hans-Georg Maassen . In addition, there should be regular meetings between representatives of the NSA and the BfV. An NSA employee allegedly meets weekly with German secret service employees in the "BfV property Treptow " to exchange information . In addition, analysts from the BfV are said to have met their American colleagues several times at the Dagger Complex US base in Darmstadt. The parliamentary control body of the German Bundestag is said to have been "fully" informed.

Analytical activities for US companies

The announcement of the German-American agreement on the granting of exemptions and benefits to the companies "Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems, Inc." and " Booz Allen Hamilton , Inc." was announced on February 12, 2009. The legal basis for the agreement was Article 72 (4) of the Additional Agreement to the NATO Forces Statute . In Drucksache 17/5586 the Federal Government's answer to the minor question from MPs Paul Schäfer (Cologne) et al. on April 14, 2011, the German government confirmed that in the period from January 2005 to February 2011, 292 US companies were granted discounts on the basis of the additional agreement to the NATO troop statute. The concessions are exemptions from the German regulations on the exercise of trade and commerce, with the exception of regulations on occupational safety and health.

The IT service provider Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), which is among other things a contractor for the CIA and NSA and was involved in kidnappings and torture, maintains the subsidiary CSC Deutschland Solutions GmbH in Germany with its headquarters in Wiesbaden . Since the 1990s, this company has received orders from federal ministries with a total volume of approx. 300 million euros, including access to sensitive data. In addition to the De-Mail project , which, according to the federal government, should allow secure communication with the authorities, CSC Germany was involved in setting up the national weapons register , checking the state Trojan and introducing the new identity card. Neither CSC Germany nor the Federal Ministry of the Interior wanted to comment on a possible transfer of German (citizen) data by CSC Germany via CSC to US services in November 2013.

Other states

The "Five Eyes" alliance of states, unveiled by Edward Snowden, which has been monitoring the Internet independently of suspicion since 2007 at the latest and storing the data obtained in this way, has entered into collaborations with a number of other states. These states were mentioned in the press: Germany, Switzerland and Denmark, Israel, Sweden, Singapore, France, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands.

Cooperation between companies and secret services

According to media reports, the British secret service GCHQ has been working with:
Companies Code name Branch
British Telecom Remedy telecommunications
Global crossing Pinnage Network operator
Interoute Streetcar Network operator
Level 3 Little Network operator
Verizon Dacron telecommunications
Viatel Vitreous Network operator
Vodafone Cable Gerontic telecommunications

At the beginning of August 2013, the Süddeutsche Zeitung and the NDR reported, after viewing documents provided by Edward Snowden, that US and British telecommunications companies and network operators are working with national secret services on the basis of legal instructions to enable them to gain access to data abroad. Some of the companies are also said to have actively supported the secret services by developing computer programs against payment that make it easier for the secret services to intercept data from their networks. In 2013, the NSA reportedly paid US backbone providers US $ 278 million to access their infrastructure. Another US $ 56.6 million has gone to foreign partners ("Foreign Partner Access"), whereby these are foreign companies or secret services. US companies that cooperate with US authorities under PRISM are said to have received no money.

Glass fiber test access port (passive network monitoring component for data networks)

Level 3 operates several large data centers and internet nodes in Germany . On August 1, 2013, Level 3 indirectly admitted that it would enable the American secret services to monitor the world's largest Internet node DE-CIX in Frankfurt am Main . Interoute operates 102 so-called Point of Presence in Europe - 15 in Germany alone. Global Crossing controls an important transatlantic cable Atlantic Crossing 1 , which is connected to German networks on Sylt . Verizon operates two intra-European submarine cables, Ulysses 1 and 2 .

Viatel denied cooperating with the UK GCHQ, but at the same time referred to laws that can force companies to disclose information and cooperate with the government and the authorities, even in secret. All other companies named indirectly admitted the allegations at the request of the Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Edward Snowden's documents, which the NDR and the Süddeutsche Zeitung were able to inspect, are said to show that the GCHQ is also expressly committed to the “economic well-being” of the United Kingdom - state-financed industrial espionage could therefore be conceivable.

Monitoring of international payments by the NSA

An NSA branch called Follow the Money is responsible for spying on financial data. The information obtained flows into a financial database called “Tracfin” and contained around 180 million data records in 2011 alone. 84% of the data is credit card data. One of the goals was the transactions of Visa customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to a presentation. It is still a matter of “collecting, storing and analyzing the transaction data of leading credit card companies.” According to the Brazilian television broadcaster TV Globo, the NSA also taps into the SWIFT communication network used for data exchange between banks . US Intelligence Director James Clapper said it was "no secret that the intelligence community collects information on all economic and financial matters and the financing of terrorism." Even without the NSA, American authorities evaluate European bank data via SWIFT. There is a corresponding agreement between the USA and the EU. As the EU Commission admitted in 2011, the USA can access transfers from one EU country to another, provided they are made via the FIN service of the SWIFT network. A spokesman for the financial services provider SWIFT also confirmed this. In mid-September 2013, EU Interior Commissioner Cecilia Malmström spoke publicly of a possible end to the bank data agreement. After the European Parliament called for a suspension of the agreement on October 23, 2013 in a resolution adopted by the plenary, Malmström claimed that the agreement offered an effective protection of the rights of Europeans and would not be suspended, although there are known significant shortcomings in the agreement .

Collection of email contact details by the NSA

On October 15, 2013, the Washington Post published a report based on Snowden records, according to which the NSA was collecting contacts from address books of online services. Since this procedure is not allowed in the United States, the NSA is cooperating with foreign telecommunications providers. By linking the address books, contact profiles are to be created. According to the Washington Post , there are references to terrorists, human traffickers and drug smugglers .

FoxAcid

FoxAcid is an automated attack and monitoring system of the NSA that independently categorizes people as suspicious, scans their target computers and telephones for security gaps and infiltrates them with individually suitable malware based on this analysis (tailored access operations) .

The technical weaknesses used for this purpose and officially mostly unknown come directly from software manufacturers and telephone providers - they can also be purchased on the black market. FoxAcid also codenames the secret Internet servers to which users are redirected unnoticed in order to infect browsers and computers and carry out further attacks. This is to ensure long-term compromise. Special cookies , such as those from Google, can uniquely identify the browser and are used to place targeted spy software on individual computers and "exploit it remotely".

In order to be identified as an attack target, it is sufficient to use certain keywords in communication or to visit certain websites. In official US Department of Defense records, protests in the form of demonstrations are considered low level terrorism .

Mystic / retro

Cover sheet of an NSA presentation
The five countries affected by MYSTIC

At the end of March 2014, the Washington Post published information allegedly derived from Edward Snowden's documents. The NSA started a voice interception program called MYSTIC in 2009 to record telephone calls across the board. The RETRO tool (English abbreviation for retrospective retrieval , for example: subsequent receiving) has been in use at full capacity since 2011. The original development goal was to be able to record every single telephone call in a country and to store it for a period of 30 days, in order to finally overwrite the oldest with the latest recordings (the principle of the digital ring memory ). According to the 2013 intelligence agency budget, capacity has already increased to five countries. For October 2013, the NSA planned to add a sixth country to the program. The five states that have been completely intercepted include the Bahamas , Mexico , Kenya , the Philippines and Afghanistan .

The NSA uses a comic-like, sinister-looking magician as the logo for the program - with a white beard, a blue-violet pointed hat and a magic wand, on the upper end of which apparently sits a glass hand holding a cell phone.

Tapping of submarine cables

Rumors that have long been known that the submarine USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23) is said to have been modified for special operations (including spying out data from undersea cables ) have now been confirmed by NSA documents, according to Spiegel . This should make it possible to “collect communication via fiber optic cables while the data is flowing through”.

espionage

A large number of top politicians worldwide were monitored. In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel and other top politicians were wiretapped. Eavesdropping on the German Chancellor's cell phone was reported. Other cases have been reported from Mexico, Brazil, possibly France and Italy.

According to reports from Spiegel Online and Der Spiegel in 2013, internal NSA documents describe a wiretapping program called the Special Collection Service (SCS). Allegedly more than 80 embassies and consulates around the world are involved. 19 of them are in Europe - e.g. B. in Paris, Madrid, Rome, Prague, Vienna and Geneva. Listening posts in Germany are said to be in the US Consulate General in Frankfurt and in the Embassy of the United States in Berlin , which have the highest level of equipment - i.e. H. are manned by active employees. According to the reports, the SCS teams operate their own wiretapping systems with which they can eavesdrop on all common communication technologies, such as mobile phones, WLANs, satellite communication, etc.

On the opening day of the G8 summit in Northern Ireland in 2013, the Guardian published a report and documents according to which the British secret service Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) systematically monitored politicians from other nations at the two G20 meetings in London in April and September 2009 Has. In this way, not only the addresses but also the contents of e-mails and computers were spied on.

After the revelations by Edward Snowden, the largest Belgian telecommunications company Belgacom and its mobile phone subsidiary Proximus , whose customers include the European Commission , the European Council , the European Parliament and NATO , carried out extensive internal security measures and were able to track down the traces in June 2013 detect digital intrusion . As the Brussels newspaper De Standaard reported, Belgacom saw itself as a victim of a large-scale state espionage attack since at least 2011. Der Spiegel reported in September 2013 that the British secret service had been accessing the Belgacom system since 2010 at the latest. The case was politically explosive because the Belgian government is the main shareholder of the semi-public telecommunications company. The Belgian government reacted indignantly.

Covert operations

Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG)

In February 2014, a report by the US broadcaster NBC News , based on documents by Edward Snowden, revealed the existence of the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG) within the British news service GCHQ. Accordingly, the JTRIG's remit includes “dirty tricks” to “deny, disrupt, decompose and destroy” enemies by “discrediting” them, placing misinformation and trying to shut down their communications. Propaganda is also carried out through the mass spreading of rumors via Twitter , Flickr , Facebook and YouTube .

Data theft from Gemalto by NSA and GCHQ

In February 2015, The Intercept reported , citing documents from Snowden, that NSA and GCHQ had stolen millions of cryptographic keys (certificates) by breaking into Gemalto servers. With the keys stored on the SIM card, it is easy to listen to encrypted communications - without a court order and without leaving any traces - anywhere in the world. Gemalto is a Dutch joint stock company that produces chip and magnetic stripe cards such as SIM cards for cell phones, credit cards, biometric IDs and electronic health cards, it is one of the world's largest SIM card manufacturers. In Germany, the company Giesecke & Devrient is considered to be the leading competitor to Gemalto, who is also named in a document as a target.

This data theft also invalidates electronic evidence. Tapped data transmissions and SMS, as well as connection logs and movement histories, can no longer be regarded as reliable evidence in court proceedings. Cryptography specialist and research professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Matthew Green told The Intercept: "Gaining access to the key database is essentially 'game over' for mobile encryption."

BND wiretapping of Hillary Clinton

In August 2014 it became known that the Federal Intelligence Service allegedly accidentally intercepted and used a phone call made by then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton , which she had made from a US government machine during her tenure. This was revealed in connection with the unmasking of the alleged BND-CIA double agent Markus R. The recording of the conversation is said to have come about when Clinton was flying over a crisis region in her plane, in which the BND is monitoring communications. In similar situations, communication from politicians from friendly countries has repeatedly entered the data streams monitored by the BND. Since the summer of 2013, an instruction from the Chancellery has been in force to destroy such material immediately. Previously there was an instruction to submit such bycatch to the respective BND president. However, it is possible that the NSA used German hardware and software, as in the Kimble case in New Zealand or in the case of the search for selectors that the NSA fed into the system without the knowledge of the BND (see above).

Effects and reactions

United Nations resolution against espionage

As early as June 4, 2013 (a few days before the first publication of Snowden), the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Freedom of Expression and Expression, Frank La Rue , in his report to the United Nations General Assembly, expressed concern that the state Monitoring and wiretapping of electronic communications can have a significant negative impact on individual freedom and freedom of expression, which is essential for a democracy. Many countries justify unprecedented encroachments on the fundamental rights of their citizens under the pretext of vague norms such as the “fight against international terror” . Full surveillance of telecommunications and online communications, in his view, is possible, affordable, and became apparent in several countries , for example during the Arab Spring .

In response to the spying on heads of state and government, Germany and Brazil began working on a UN resolution against espionage in October 2013, but without explicitly mentioning the US secret service NSA. The resolution is intended to complement the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966, which came into force in 1976 and was ratified by the USA in 1992. The UN Human Rights Committee should discuss the draft resolution in November. This resolution was then adopted by the Human Rights Council on June 20, 2014.

United States

politics

Original sound: Barack Obama on the espionage affair, June 7, 2013

US President Obama defended PRISM in June 2013 with the words: “You cannot have 100 percent security and 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience.” He said at the same time that he had an audit carried out to monitor surveillance when he took office : "I came in with a healthy skepticism about these programs. My team evaluated them. We scrubbed them thoroughly. "

In August 2013, Obama commissioned the Director of National Intelligence to have a group of experts investigate previous practice. Michael Hochgeschwender described their final report as a "slap in the face for American politics."

Former President Jimmy Carter ( Democrat ) expressed himself very critically at an event organized by the German-American political network Atlantik-Brücke in Atlanta : “America currently has no functioning democracy. […] I think the invasion of privacy has gone too far. And I think the secrecy has been excessive about it. [Edward Snowden's revelations are] likely useful as they inform the public. "

Former Republican Senator from New Hampshire , Gordon J. Humphrey , praised Snowden in an email that he had "done the right thing," provided that it did not endanger intelligence agents. He called the uncovered surveillance programs a "massive violation of the American constitution". Not Snowden should be punished, but those who disregard civil rights. In his response to Humphrey, Snowden stated that all the data he had pulled from the NSA was completely safe and that he was not putting anyone at risk. Not even the NSA can uncover the secrets he continues to protect. It was his "special task to protect highly sensitive information from unauthorized access, even in the most dangerous counter-espionage environment, for example China". "You can rest assured that I cannot be forced to reveal this information, even under torture," Snowden assured Humphrey.

In Congress , phone and Internet surveillance was supported by a majority of Democrats and Republicans. "There is no question that these programs saved lives," said Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer .

Obama claimed at the beginning of August 2013 that the debate about the role and powers of the secret services had already begun before Snowden's revelations. Even without him, we would have come to the current point of the broad discussion: “What distinguishes us from other countries is that we are not just secure our nation, but do so in the context of an open debate in the democratic process. "

On October 28, 2013, the Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein , Chairwoman of the Secret Service Committee, announced that there would be an investigation in the Senate into the surveillance of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other leading politicians from friendly states.

Republican presidential candidate for the 2008 election and Senator John McCain called for an apology from President Obama for wiretapping Angela Merkel's cell phone.

Eric Holder , who held the office of Attorney General of the United States from 2009 to 2015 , described the 2013 revelations as something that "harmed American interests". In May 2016, he praised Snowden's actions as "a service to the public". The “usefulness” of the “national debate” that has been initiated should be considered to mitigate the penalty.

US intelligence

When asked about the alleged ignorance of German politicians about the NSA's espionage activities in Germany, former NSA and CIA director Michael V. Hayden said: “We were very open to our friends. Not only in Germany, but that is where the meeting took place. We explained to them what the threat looked like. We were very clear about what we were going to do in relation to the goals and we asked them to cooperate because it was something that was clearly in our mutual interest. "

In a warning against cyberattacks as a reaction to the scandal, he described political opponents and activists as " nihilists , anarchists , activists, LulzSec , Anonymous , twenty to thirty year olds who have not spoken to the opposite sex for five or six years". In an interview with CNN on July 31, Hayden confirmed the basic statements of the Guardian and Edward Snowden about the espionage program XKeyScore and roughly explained the NSA's approach to surveillance.

Hayden gave a lecture at St. John's Episcopal Church across from the White House on September 15, saying the Internet was built in the United States and "American through and through." Should the Internet exist for another 500 years, the US would be famous for the Internet in the same way that the Roman Empire is still famous for its streets today. This is why most of the Internet traffic today goes through US servers . From this, Hayden deduces that the US government has the right to "make a copy of it for intelligence purposes." Hayden admitted that the US could also be held responsible for " militarizing the Internet". The NSA's Office of Tailored Access Operations (TAO), which was founded in 1997 and now has over 1,000 employees, including civil and military hackers, analysts , hardware and software designers , and engineers, is tasked with infiltrating foreign targets in order to steal data and monitor communications . It also develops programs that can destroy or damage foreign computers and networks with cyber attacks.

Following Edward Snowden's disclosure of the NSA's PRISM program, Thomas Drake , a former NSA employee and whistleblower , said that Snowden saw what he [Drake] saw and that what Snowden disclosed was just the "tip of the iceberg." .

The consequence that the NSA wants to draw from the affair, according to General Keith B. Alexander , will be that of the approximately 1000 administrators who take care of the maintenance and expansion of the NSA network, around 90% will be dismissed. They are to be replaced by more computers and new software.

After NSA boss Keith B. Alexander had already spoken about a possible retirement in summer 2013, he resigned on March 28, 2014. This - according to Die Zeit - would give US President Barack Obama the chance to reorganize his secret services, because Alexander is not only head of the NSA, but also head of the Central Security Service and commander of the US Cyber ​​Command . His deputy, John C. Inglis , resigned on January 10, 2014.

Survey

In a phone poll conducted by Gallup , the results of which were published on June 12, 2013, a slim majority (53%) of the American adult population surveyed said they were against the surveillance programs that had become public; 37% supported it.

In a poll by the Pew Research Center , the results of which were released on July 26, a somewhat clearer majority (56%) of the surveyed adult US Americans stated that US courts did not set adequate limits on regulatory supervision. 70% of the respondents believed that the state used the data for purposes other than just the fight against terrorism.

Amash / Conyers Amendment

In response to Edward Snowden's revelations, two US House representatives from Michigan , Justin Amash ( Republican ) and John Conyers ( Democrat ), wanted to amend the National Defense Authorization Act . If successful, "[the addition] would curtail the ongoing collection and storage of innocent Americans' personal information on a large scale." The US House of Representatives rejected the addition by 205 votes to 217.

Discontinuation of the Lavabit and Silent Mail e-mail services

On August 8, 2013, the provider of encrypted e-mail services Lavabit , which Snowden had probably also used to give interviews during his stay in the transit area of ​​Moscow airport, apparently after pressure from the American government closed the service. At the same time, the operator Ladar Levison warned against entrusting personal data to any company that has direct relations with the United States. The Guardian -Journalist Glenn Greenwald cites Edward Snowden in this context:

"Ladar Levison and his team preferred to shut down their ten-year-old company than violate the constitutional rights of their 400,000 or so users."

Ladar Levison, the owner of Lavabit, is not allowed to speak about the background to his decision. In similar cases, the US secret court, FISC, has prevented Google and other Internet companies from disclosing details of US investigative authorities' requests for access to e-mail. However, the reasons for the closure later became known: In order to track down Snowden, the FBI had obtained a search warrant and the release of all SSL keys, which would have made it possible to decrypt all communication via Lavabit. Lavabit initially only issued the keys as miniature printouts in a font size of 4pt . When the court ordered the handover in a usable form under threat of punishment, Ladar Levison ceased operations at Lavabit.

The company Silent Circle has also announced that it will discontinue its Silent Mail e-mail service with immediate effect. The co-founder of Silent Circle and creator of the PGP encryption system , Phil Zimmermann , wrote as early as 1991:

"When privacy becomes illegal, only the outlaws have privacy."

- Phil Zimmermann

In December 2013, in connection with a lawsuit filed by two private individuals, the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia in Washington, DC stated that the NSA's massive phone data collection was believed to be unconstitutional. The government could not show a single case in which the collected telephone data made it possible to stop an impending terrorist attack; the surveillance has "almost Orwellian" dimensions.

Internet company

In December 2013, eight large US IT companies ( Apple , Yahoo , Facebook , Twitter , AOL , LinkedIn , Google and Microsoft ) turned to politicians via a newspaper advertisement and accompanying reporting, demanding that the network be monitored by US Intelligence services must be completely reorganized. The internationally operating companies depend on their products and services to be successful worldwide. They feared reports of the surveillance would put their customers, especially outside of the US, off.

"People won't use technology they don't trust," Brad Smith, Microsoft's general counsel, said in a statement. "Governments have put this trust at risk, and governments need to help restore it."

"People won't use technology they don't trust," said Brad Smith, Microsoft legal director, in a statement. "Governments have compromised that trust, and governments must help restore it."

- Brad Smith : The New York Times

In this context, the companies themselves exposed themselves to criticism, because first of all it was they who collected the relevant data en masse and even set up the infrastructure for exchanging it with one another. User profiles generated in this way are also compared with offline databases via appropriate service providers, such as Acxiom , in order to generate as comprehensive information as possible about US users of the large Internet companies. Jeffrey Chester, director of the consumer protection organization CDD, commented on the criticism of the government by the Internet companies:

"They're the biggest bunch of hypocrites on the planet."

"You are the biggest bunch of hypocrites on the planet."

- Jeffrey Chester : LiveMint

European Union

The meeting of EU justice ministers took place on July 19, 2013 in Vilnius, Lithuania . From the German side, Federal Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich and Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger were there. The EU is currently planning an EU data protection reform , which was pushed forward by EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding against much opposition from EU states. In the course of the surveillance and espionage affair, the EU member states changed parts of their position on this reform. There were several suggestions; Among other things, the Safe Harbor procedure was discussed and a fine of up to 2% of annual sales was demanded for all companies that are active on the EU market but do not comply with EU regulations.

On July 4, 2013, the European Parliament instructed the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs to investigate the surveillance and espionage affair. At the hearing on September 5, Alan Rusbridger , Jacob Appelbaum , Gerhard Schmid and Duncan Campbell (who had revealed Echelon ) spoke . Duncan Campbell said, among other things, that the Swedish news service Försvarets radioanstalt is listening to Internet connections in the Baltic Sea together with the British GCHQ and the US NSA. In addition, an EU-US expert group was set up to deal with allegations of espionage against the EU. However, since the EU has no competence to negotiate on intelligence work, it was uncertain what the expert group would talk about.

Legal process

On October 3, 2013, the alliance Privacy not Prism announced that it had filed a lawsuit against the British government at the European Court of Human Rights .

Three British NGOs have joined forces in the alliance - Big Brother Watch , the Open Rights Group and the English writers' association PEN Together with the spokeswoman for the Chaos Computer Club , Constanze Kurz , they accused the British secret service GCHQ of illegally intruding on the privacy of British people millions of times and to have made European citizens. Since the fundraising goal of £ 20,000 to finance the lawsuit was reached in a very short time, the alliance has been collecting grants in order to be able to do more extensive public relations work for the lawsuit and campaign.

Great Britain

Fixing David Miranda

David Miranda and Glenn Greenwald in October 2013 during a survey at the National Congress in Brazil.

Alan Rusbridger , editor-in-chief of the British newspaper The Guardian , criticized the arrest of David Miranda, Glenn Greenwald's Brazilian partner, on a layover at London Heathrow Airport on August 18, 2013 . Miranda was on a return flight from Germany to Rio de Janeiro ; he was detained and interrogated for over nine hours without any specific allegation. His computer, written records, two USB sticks, an external hard drive and other devices were confiscated, including a game console, a new telephone and a new watch - without being returned to him when he was released. Put under massive pressure and detention threatened that he had even the passwords to his phone, his computer and his social media - accounts must disclose. Miranda had spent a week in Berlin, where he lived with Laura Poitras in her Berlin apartment. Poitras rented the apartment in 2012 so that the FBI would not search their material. Poitras is the US documentary filmmaker who, together with Greenwald, uncovered the NSA scandal. It was she who first came into contact with Edward Snowden. He wrote her an email in January 2013, asked for her public key for a secure email connection, and gradually gave her information about NSA surveillance.

Scotland Yard had officially justified access on the basis of a controversial terrorism law (Appendix 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 ), which allows arrest without a judicial order and without the right to legal assistance. Refusing to testify at this time is also a criminal offense. Rusbridger said: "By calling it terror, you are overriding all rules" The Brazilian government appointed the British ambassador in Brasilia in response to the incident. Brazilian Foreign Minister Antonio Patriota protested in a telephone conversation with his British colleague William Hague that the arrest of Miranda and its treatment was "unjustifiable".

Intimidation attempts at the British Guardian

In August 2013, it became known that several employees of the British secret service GCHQ, on behalf of British Prime Minister David Cameron, had telephone and face-to-face contact with Alan Rusbridger , editor-in-chief of the British newspaper The Guardian , for weeks . Rusbridger stated that GCHQ staff said “You've had your fun. Now we want the stuff back. "(German:" You had your fun. Now we want the stuff back. ") Wanted to destroy the data that the Guardian had received from the US whistleblower Edward Snowden , or to to pass the GCHQ. The attempts of the GCHQ culminated in August 2013 when two GCHQ employees visited the editorial rooms of the Guardian with a degausser and forced Rusbridger and two other employees under threat of criminal action to put the hard drive with the data transmitted by Snowden under their supervision in the basement to destroy the building with drilling and grinding machines. Rusbridger stated that he had finally obeyed these requests because the Guardian had further copies of the data in the USA and Brazil and he also wanted to prevent the hard drive and data from falling into the hands of the GCHQ and thus from being found out what specific data it is. Since the GCHQ and David Cameron had to know that the Guardian still has further copies of the data in other parts of the world and that the destruction of this one hard drive could not prevent the reporting, Rusbridger and other participants and observers suspect that it is with the GCHQ action was a targeted intimidation and harassment measure by the British government and the GCHQ. To the astonishment of the human rights organization Privacy International , the GCHQ employees who proceeded according to plan not only destroyed the hard drives, but also deliberately some chips that are not used to store data. Among the destroyed chips was the controller for the keyboard and trackpad as well as the graphics processor of the notebook of the Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger, an Apple MacBook Air .

The UK government asks the New York Times to delete the Snowden data

According to a Reuters report, the British government and a senior diplomat personally contacted the editor-in-chief of the New York Times , Jill Abramson , and requested that all of Edward Snowden's documents be destroyed. Abramson did not respond to it, nor did it publicly comment on it. A spokesman for the British Embassy said that "it should come as no surprise to anyone who has the material or parts of it".

He added: "We had given a testimony explaining why we are trying to secure over 58,000 copies of stolen intelligence documents." Alan Rusbridger, editor-in-chief of the Guardian , said after the incident became known, astonished about the several weeks between the incident at his newspaper and the New York Times . This would contradict the alleged urgency with which the British government justified the several hours of interrogation of David Miranda, Glenn Greenwald's partner, at London's Heathrow Airport.

British government and conservative press access the Guardian on

After the affair had played a minor role in large parts of the British press landscape over the past few months or was completely ignored, conservative British newspapers began to bring forward clear allegations against the Guardian from the second week of October 2013 . The Times quoted former GCHQ chief David Omand as saying, “ Snowden leaks worst blow to British intelligence ever. ”( Sir David Omand : Times, German:“ Snowden's publications are the worst blow of all time against the British secret services. ”) The British tabloid The Sun headlined on October 11, 2013:“ Prosecute Guardian for aiding terrorists ”( Tom Newton Dunn : The Sun, German: "Investigated against the 'Guardian' because of the support of terrorists") and took up the demand of a conservative backbencher. The day before, the Sun had a headline : “ Guardian treason helping terrorists ” ( Rod Liddle : The Sun, German: “High treason of the Guardian helps terrorists”).

The Daily Mail published a comment entitled " The paper that helps Britain's enemies " (The Daily Mail, German: "The newspaper that helps British enemies"), in it raised serious allegations against the Guardian and spoke, for example, of "deadly irresponsibility" of the Guardian . The Guardian then contacted various leading newspapers around the world and submitted the aforementioned Daily Mail comment to the editorial offices . Various editors, including the New York Times , the Washington Post , the mirror , the FAZ , the Sueddeutsche , of Le Monde , of El País , of La Repubblica , purchased from newspapers from Denmark, Poland, Austria and other countries comment on the allegations against the Guardian . In a variety of words, but with the same content, they were of the opinion that publications are necessary to preserve freedom and, in democratic states, even the duty of an independent press. The Guardian was very responsible for the publications, in that names and personal data were not published and too detailed information was withheld.

British Prime Minister David Cameron took up the allegations and suggested that a parliamentary committee should look into the matter. David Cameron was quoted as saying, “It is a fact that national security has been damaged. In many ways, the Guardian admitted as much when it agreed to destroy the files after my national security adviser politely asked them to. ”( David Cameron : Spiegel Online)

Germany

politics

The political situation during the affair was shaped by three major election campaigns - the federal election , the state election in Hesse in 2013 (both on September 22, 2013) and the Bavarian state election that took place one week earlier .

For the first time on July 8, 2013, government spokesman Steffen Seibert made a statement on the occasion of the upcoming visit of the then Federal Minister of the Interior Hans-Peter Friedrich (CSU) to the United States, but left open the basis on which he was referring:

“The BND adheres to law and order in everything it does. In everything that the federal government and the intelligence services do to protect citizens, proportionality must be maintained. The central question always applies: Have we maintained the balance between freedom and security here? "

- Steffen Seibert : Süddeutsche Zeitung

In the public discussion that followed his trip, Friedrich postulated a “super fundamental right” to security. The idea of ​​building a European or German Internet (" Schlandnet ") that is more independent of the server location in the USA was also discussed on various occasions in this context .

On August 16, 2013, Friedrich declared the NSA affair over for the first time. In this context, he stated: “All suspicions that have been raised have been dispelled.” The Snowden affair is about “false allegations and suspicions that have vanished into thin air (...) We can be very satisfied and also very proud be sure that our intelligence services are recognized by our allies as efficient, proven and trustworthy partners. "

Friedrich said on August 28, 2013 at Illner Intensiv on ZDF that all statements by Edward Snowden had been checked and that the American secret services were not spying on Germany. Regarding the revelations about the spying on state agencies, he “assumed that American agencies are not spying on us.” He also assured that there was “no industrial espionage by German services”.

Ronald Pofalla , the head of the Federal Chancellery at the time , denied a millionfold violation of fundamental rights in the Parliamentary Control Committee on August 12, 2013 . Both the US secret service NSA and the British secret service had stated in writing that they adhered to the law in Germany and did not conduct mass spying. He declared the "NSA affair" over.

In connection with the surveillance affair , the CSU politician Hans-Peter Uhl called the “right to informational self-determination ”, as developed by the Federal Constitutional Court from 1983 (so-called census judgment ), “an idyll from bygone times”.

On April 6, 2014, a Spiegel interview with Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière was published in which he described the behavior of the NSA as excessive. "If two thirds of what Edward Snowden says or what is presented with reference to him as a source is correct, then I come to the conclusion: The USA acts without moderation." ( Thomas de Maizière : Der Spiegel)

NSA inquiry committee

On March 14, 2014, the parliamentary groups of the Union, SPD, Greens and Left agreed to set up an NSA committee of inquiry with eight members. The CDU member Clemens Binninger initially held the chair; however, he resigned after only six days of presidency. Patrick Sensburg (CDU) took over for him .

The committee should clarify the extent and background of the spies by foreign secret services in Germany. His task also included looking for strategies to better protect telecommunications using technical means.

On July 4, 2014, it became public knowledge that a BND employee was arrested on July 2 by the federal prosecutor's office on suspicion of being a secret service agent (including against the NSA investigative committee).

Investigations by the Attorney General

From 2013

On June 27, 2013, the Attorney General Harald Range initiated an observation procedure. The authority requested information from all German intelligence services involved in the NSA spying scandal and the responsible federal ministries. As part of the observation process, it should be checked, among other things, whether the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office would be responsible at all. In the event of a positive outcome, an investigation based on Section 99 of the German Criminal Code could have been initiated against the Federal Republic of Germany because of secret service agent activities.

At the beginning of December 2013, Range announced at the annual press conference of his authority, “We are doing everything we are legally allowed to”. So far, however, there have been no concrete indications "that the NSA or the GCHQ have systematically monitored German telephone and Internet traffic," said the Attorney General.

After various persons and NGOs under the leadership of the International League for Human Rights had filed criminal charges against the secret services and the federal government at the beginning of February 2014, the Frankfurter Rundschau reported on February 8, 2014 that information was available, according to which investigations should be started within 10 days. In addition, the newspaper reported that it had information that makes it clear that the Federal Chancellery, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Justice Minister Heiko Maas (both SPD) had agreed not to oppose possible investigations by the Federal Prosecutor's Office. If there is fear of serious foreign policy damage for Germany through a formal investigation, this is basically possible despite the federal public prosecutor's independence from politics.

On May 27, 2014, the research community from Süddeutscher Zeitung, NDR and WDR published information from the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office, according to which the Public Prosecutor General Range is unlikely to want to initiate an investigation. The Federal Prosecutor's Office reported that no preliminary investigation would be initiated - neither because of the suspected automated wiretapping of German citizens, nor because of the years of surveillance by the NSA on a cell phone belonging to the Federal Chancellor. On the same day, Range stated on request that he would "announce a final decision as soon as possible".

Dietmar Riemer commented on this the next day: "The Federal Prosecutor General finds himself exposed to suspicions with his legally justifiable decision to put his hands on his lap, which does not rule out a last bit of political influence, maybe even pressure, who knows." . In contrast, Patrick Sensburg , the chairman of the NSA committee of inquiry , expressed his incomprehension for the criticism of Range. He said that a criminal case with a possible conviction needed "more concrete evidence than rumors, speculation and newspaper reports." You are in the area of ​​justice and not political speculation. What is needed is "absolutely solid evidence".

After massive criticism, Harald Range let the press know on June 4, 2014 that he would initiate an investigation - albeit limited to the Chancellor's possibly tapped cell phone. The possible mass surveillance of German citizens should remain under observation. After he had informed the legal committee of the German Bundestag, Range turned personally to the press. 2000 criminal charges were received in connection with the possible mass surveillance of German citizens, which is said to have been carried out by US and British intelligence services. However, according to Range, this did not result in any further findings. There are "so far no sufficient facts for specific, with the means of criminal offenses prosecutable". However, the exams are not yet over. Range commissioned federal prosecutor Sigrid Hegmann , head of the cyber espionage unit, to lead the investigation into the possible surveillance of Angela Merkel's cell phone . As the reason for the supposed change of course, Hans Leyendecker and Georg Mascolo described the espionage department with Section S2 (espionage in other countries), which according to SZ information should have been strictly against the initiation of official investigations until recently.

On November 24, 2014, the Focus published a report based on information from the Federal Ministry of Justice, according to which the team of investigators, headed by Sigrid Hegmann, had submitted a dismissal order to the Attorney General. With reference to Section 170 (II) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, it should be noted that the commission of a criminal offense cannot be proven. Members of the NSA inquiry committee expressed disappointment with this report. "The Federal Prosecutor General must now explain very promptly what knowledge he had when the proceedings were initiated and why the investigations should now be stopped," said the chairman of the committee, Patrick Sensburg, to Zeit Online .

At the public prosecutor's annual press conference on December 11, 2014, Harald Range stated that there was “no evidence leading to an indictment that connection data was recorded or a telephone call made by the Chancellor was tapped”, and continued: “The document that was in public has been viewed as evidence of actual wiretapping of the cell phone is not an authentic NSA telecommunications intelligence mandate. It does not come from an NSA database ”. Neither from the journalists of the Spiegel, nor from Edward Snowden or from US intelligence circles, he would have received further explanations. "A serious assessment of the authenticity and content of the document is currently not possible under these circumstances," said Range.

After multiple misunderstandings had arisen as a result of Rank's statements, Der Spiegel published a correction of the events on December 14, 2014. “However, SPIEGEL never claimed to have submitted an original document to the federal government. Rather, his editors were able to view and copy the document from an NSA database and always made that clear, ”says Rüdiger Ditz . Range's press spokesman also made it clear: "When a journalist asked during the press conference whether the document was a forgery, Attorney General Range expressly denied." The copy of the database extract, which was handed over to the government spokesman by Spiegel editors in 2013 , was later published as an alleged original document in other media. The copy was never published publicly by Spiegel itself.

The investigation was terminated in 2017

According to a press release from the Federal Prosecutor's Office on October 5, 2017, the investigations by the Federal Prosecutor General Peter Frank and the clarification by the NSA investigative committee found no evidence that the British and US secret services “illegally systematically and en masse monitor German telecommunications and Internet traffic ". This also applies to "communication that is handled via fiber optic cables running in Germany". Furthermore, the Federal Prosecutor's press release claims that the operators of the DE-CIX Internet node have come to the same assessment “via the data traffic processed there”. In the documents provided by Edward Snowden , the Federal Prosecutor's Office also found “no concrete evidence of espionage activities by the NSA in or against Germany”. The federal prosecutor therefore closed the investigation.

Criminal charges

Against the federal government

On February 3, 2014, several groups and people (including the Chaos Computer Club , the International League for Human Rights , the data protection association Digitalcourage , as well as Rolf Gössner , Constanze Kurz , Rena Tangens and Padeluun ) filed criminal charges against the federal government. The federal government actively carried out and supported illegal secret service agent activities, committed violations of personal life and secrecy and hindered investigations against them through cooperation with British and US secret services.

In particular, the responsible heads of the German intelligence services (the Federal Intelligence Service , the Military Counter-Intelligence Service and the Protection of the Constitution ) were named who were "entangled in the nationwide secret service activities and involved in the global research system and the data excesses with endless data transfers". Chancellor Angela Merkel and Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière were explicitly mentioned as responsible for the "alleged accomplices and accomplices" of German secret services. The involvement of German secret services through the delivery of data or the participation, for example, in the XKeyscore spy program, requires clarification. With the planned investigation committee of the Bundestag Gössner saw the problem in the secrecy, because ultimately only the Snowden revelations are public.

Against unknown

On August 5, 2013, the lawyer Udo Vetter filed a criminal complaint against unknown persons with the public prosecutor's office in Flensburg on behalf of his client Wolfgang Dudda , a member of the Schleswig-Holstein Landtag and member of the Pirate Party . The complaint was directed against telecommunications companies and network operators:

"According to the whistleblower Edward Snowden, the companies are supposed to actively support the NSA and the British secret service. They should grant the secret services access to their nodes in Germany so that they can tap the data streams. Sometimes the data should even be processed by the companies themselves and made available to the services - presumably for a fee. "

- Udo Vetter

DE-CIX lawsuit

The Internet node operator DE-CIX wanted to file a lawsuit with the administrative court. Among other things, the company had the former constitutional judge Hans-Jürgen Papier drafted an expert report.

Parliamentary questions to the federal government

  • On July 26, 2013 MPs presented the parliamentary group SPD a small inquiry entitled monitoring programs of the US and extent of the cooperation of the German intelligence services with the US intelligence services, printed matter 17/14456 to the federal government. This was answered by the Federal Government on August 13, 2013 in printed matter 17/14560. Some responses are classified as secret for the public interest and are not available to the public. The answers to 27 questions were (partially) classified as classified information with different degrees of secrecy (CI-ONLY FOR SERVICE USE: 7, CI-CONFIDENTIAL: 3, SECRET: 17).
  • On August 2, 2013, members of the DIE LINKE parliamentary group submitted a small inquiry to the federal government entitled Worldwide research into telecommunications via the US PRISM program, printed matter 17/14512 . This was answered by the Federal Government on August 22, 2013 in printed matter 17/14602. The answers to two sub-questions were classified as classified with the classification VS-ONLY FOR SERVICE USE.
  • On August 2, 2013, members of the DIE LINKE parliamentary group submitted a small inquiry to the federal government entitled Newer forms of surveillance of telecommunications by the police and secret services, printed matter 17/14515 . This was answered by the Federal Government on September 6, 2013 in printed matter 17/14714. The answers to 15 questions were classified as classified information with various degrees of secrecy (VS-ONLY FOR SERVICE USE: 1, VS-SECRET: 14).
  • On August 19, 2013 members of the Bundestag faction ALLIANCE 90 / THE GREENS submitted a small question to the federal government with the title Monitoring of Internet and Telecommunications by Secret Services in the USA, Great Britain and Germany, printed matter 17/14302 . This was answered by the federal government on September 12, 2013 in printed matter 17/14739. For reasons of the state's welfare, the federal government did not answer 21 questions at all or only answered them with confidentiality.
  • On August 22, 2013, members of the DIE LINKE parliamentary group submitted a small inquiry to the federal government with the title German-US-American relations in the field of electronic warfare, printed matter 17/14302 . This was answered by the federal government on September 17, 2013 in printed matter 17/14760. The answers to three questions were classified as classified with the VS-GEHEIM classification.
  • On September 16, 2013, members of the Bundestag faction BÜNDNIS 90 / DIE GRÜNEN submitted a small inquiry to the federal government entitled Secret Cooperation Projects between German and US Secret Services, printed matter 17/14759 . This was answered by the federal government on October 4, 2013 in printed matter 17/14814. The answers to 42 questions were classified as classified with the classification VS-SECRET.
  • On September 20, 2013, members of the DIE LINKE faction in the Bundestag submitted a small question to the Federal Government entitled The possibility of other NATO member states to intervene in the confidentiality of letters, post and telecommunications in the Federal Republic of Germany, printed matter 17/14781 . This was answered by the Federal Government on October 14, 2013 in printed matter 17/14823.

Assessments by Hansjörg Geiger (President of the BND and BfV a. D.)

The former President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Federal Intelligence Service, Hansjörg Geiger, criticized the surveillance and data storage by the US secret services in a publication on June 22, 2013: “That's wrong, that's Orwell [ Note: allusion to George Orwell's novel 1984 about a surveillance state ]. The new possible quantity of surveillance creates a new quality. "( Hansjörg Geiger : Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)

Assessments by the historian Josef Foschepoth

In an interview published on July 9, 2013 with the Süddeutsche Zeitung , Josef Foschepoth , Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Freiburg , explained how the NSA has been monitoring communications since the early days of the Federal Republic of Germany .

A special agreement signed by NATO with Germany in 1963 , which replaced a section of the supplementary agreement to the NATO troop statute, enabled the troops of the NATO states stationed in Germany to legally monitor Germany until 2013. For example, the NSA was able to act in Germany without violating existing law. In 1963, both sides undertook to conclude further administrative and secret agreements, such as the secret administrative agreement of 1968, according to which the Allies of Germany can request interception results from the BND and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution if the security of their troops in Germany so requires. According to Foschepoth, these agreements are said to have continued the law of occupation in West Germany.

“The core, the connection under international law, which has the force of law in the Federal Republic of Germany, is the supplementary agreement to the NATO troop statute of August 3, 1959, which came into force in 1963. Both sides are obliged to immediately provide all information that serves the security of one or the other or the common security. And this information relates to all surveillance measures that are carried out, be it individual surveillance or strategic surveillance. There is no quantitative limitation of monitoring volumes in this context. And this is still the legal basis. "

- Josef Foschepoth : Badische Zeitung, August 3, 2013

When asked how he assesses the effects of these agreements and additional agreements, Josef Foschepoth said:

“That is one of the worst damage to the Basic Law. Today's version turns the basic idea of ​​our understanding of the state on its head. The state has to protect the citizens and their fundamental rights, not those who violate them. He has to guarantee the fundamental rights and not to grant them. "

- Josef Foschepoth : Süddeutsche Zeitung, July 9, 2013

Foschepoth's assessments are based on several years of intensive archive work, during which previously secret files were first opened and published in autumn 2012.

Foschepoth's interpretation of the legal situation is not without controversy. Peter Schaar stated that the agreements had "apparently been forgotten by all those involved", and that their discovery had "caused astonishment" among the responsible authorities. Both the US government and the federal government stated on request that no use had been made of the powers contained therein since 1990. In 2013, the administrative agreement was officially revoked by the federal government in agreement with the USA, Great Britain and France. Other special agreements and exceptions, such as the verbal note of May 27, 1968, based on the supplementary agreement to the NATO troop statute, are still in force:

"The Embassy would be grateful if the Federal Government could declare: [..] 2. that it undertakes to take effective measures within the framework of German legislation in order to protect the security of the armed forces stationed in the Federal Republic on the territory of the Post and telecommunication surveillance as soon as the rights mentioned above expire. In fulfilling this obligation, the Federal Government will act in accordance with Article 3, Paragraph 2 (a) of the Additional Agreement to the NATO Troop Statute. "

- Note verbal from May 27, 1968, printed matter V / 2942

Survey ARD Germany Trend

According to an Infratest-Dimap survey of July 19, 2013, almost every fourth German (23%) was satisfied with the efforts of the Federal Government to clarify the events , seven out of ten (69%) were dissatisfied. Eight out of ten supporters of the then opposition parties SPD, Left and Greens and a majority of Union supporters (53%) came to a critical judgment. When it came to voting, the Federal Government's reaction to the affair played only a minor role (33%) or no role at all (37%) for the vast majority of respondents.

No spy agreement

In 2013 the German government brought a so-called “ no-spy agreement ” into discussion. After Federal Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich had already made a trip to Washington in mid-July 2013 , there was a delegation at the beginning of August 2013 that, in addition to State Secretary Klaus-Dieter Fritsche and the secret service coordinator Günter Heiss, also included the heads of the BND and the Protection of the Constitution , Gerhard Schindler and Hans- Georg Maaßen , who were members, had been to the USA to obtain the information required by the German Bundestag on the type and extent of secret service activities in Germany. Following the subsequent meeting of the parliamentary control body, the head of the Chancellery, Ronald Pofalla , stepped in front of the cameras on August 12, 2013 and announced: The allegation of alleged total spying in Germany was off the table. And: “The US side has offered us the conclusion of a no-spy agreement. I have therefore asked the President of the Federal Intelligence Service to take up this offer and begin negotiations between the BND and the NSA this month. ”This agreement should contain a bilateral renunciation of espionage.

A working group was set up at the Office for the Protection of the Constitution - "Special evaluation of technical reconnaissance by US, British and French intelligence services with reference to Germany" (SAW TAD) - which determines the information available. The parliamentary control body of the German Bundestag is said to have been informed in several secret meetings by the beginning of August 2013 about findings that have already been determined.

In January 2014 it became known that the German government was also negotiating a no-spy agreement with European secret services. The content of the talks in the press cited a ban on mutual political and economic espionage and a ban on the exchange of data. Only previously agreed targets for wiretapping would still be allowed. The negotiations with European countries about a no-spy agreement were led by the Vice President of the Federal Intelligence Service, Guido Müller , who was formerly Head of Division in the Federal Chancellery.

During a visit by German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier to his US counterpart John Kerry at the end of February 2014, it became known that the US would not negotiate a no-spy agreement with the German government. The US also refused to intercept any more German government members and political officials. Instead, Steinmeier wanted to initiate a fundamental cyber dialogue between Germany and the USA, in which the different views of security, freedom and privacy in the Internet age are to be discussed.

In May 2015, the NDR, WDR and the Süddeutsche Zeitung revealed that there was never any prospect of a no-spy agreement. After that, the Federal Chancellery already knew in January 2014 that there would be no no-spy agreement with the USA. This emerges from an internal note on the status of negotiations that netzpolitik.org published in June 2015. Nonetheless, the opposite was claimed to the Bundestag and the media. Former Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger ruled that the Chancellery had ultimately "led the people and the coalition partner FDP behind the spruce". A “Potemkin village” had been built “to push the issue aside and calm everyone down”. Chancellor Merkel had probably enough that she was removed from the espionage program.

Federal data protection officer

In September 2013, Peter Schaar , the then Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information , accused the Federal Ministry of the Interior of obstructing the investigation. He submitted numerous questions, but received no answers despite repeated reminders. He had therefore submitted an official complaint to the Federal Ministry of the Interior for non-compliance with the information obligation.

On September 6, 2013, Peter Schaar was with Federal President Joachim Gauck. Gauck is said to have been interested in the importance Peter Schaar attached to the affair in relation to the basic right of informational self-determination .

At the beginning of September 2013, a joint project ("Project 6") by the Federal Intelligence Service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the US secret service CIA became known in which a joint database had been created in which data from alleged jihadists and terrorist supporters were entered. The purpose of this cooperation, which ended in 2010, was to enlighten the people around them. Peter Schaar criticized Spiegel Online for the fact that such a file must be subject to data protection control.

United Nations

The parliamentary group of the Greens turned on 11 September 2013 because of espionage and surveillance practice of the US Secret Service to the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations in Geneva. In a nine-page complaint, the opposition party accused the United States of being a “fundamental attack on democracy in Germany”. There is a threat of "extensive intimidation" of the citizens in Germany and Europe through American surveillance measures. In addition, it is to be feared that the secret services, which are not allowed to spy on their own citizens, but instead those of other nationalities, operate “a kind of organized ring exchange” with the data. This not only affects the respective national law, but already according to the current legal situation, this constitutes a violation of Articles 17 and 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights . They recommended the UN committee, which was held from October 14th to October 1st. November 2013 met that the UN body would have US authorities explain the exact scope and type of espionage measures. It must be checked whether these comply with American and international law. When in doubt, they recommended calling for changes to American laws.

The UN Human Rights Committee had already dealt with the surveillance allegations, which are based on the revelations of Edward Snowden, before this notice of complaint. The panel then expressed concern that those affected could not take legal action against the NSA spying or against incorrect information in the US databases. The US had replied that it was only looking for and spying on members of “ Islamist terrorist groups ”. But this is refuted by the information provided by Snowden.

The then German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle called on September 28, 2013 at the General Assembly of the United Nations “binding rules and standards for global data flows” and announced that Germany “should therefore initiate an initiative to protect the right to privacy in the digital age in the Human Rights Council United Nations ”. Furthermore, Westerwelle said: “Anyone who uses the Internet should be able to be sure that their rights will be protected worldwide, vis-à-vis private companies as well as countries. Not everything must happen that is technically possible. Not everything that is technically possible is also legitimate. "

Ilija Trojanow is banned from entering the USA

On September 30, 2013, the German writer Ilija Trojanow was banned from entering the United States from Salvador da Bahia (Brazil) without giving reasons. He was on his way to a German scholar Congress in Denver ( Colorado ), to which he had been invited. Trojanow was one of the first to sign the open letter from Juli Zeh to Chancellor Angela Merkel, which a few days before the incident was handed over to an online petition together with 68,000 signatures. Trojanow, who together with Juli Zeh published the non-fiction book Attack on Freedom in 2009, which deals with Internet surveillance, saw the entry ban as a reaction to his criticism of the NSA and mass surveillance. PEN President Josef Haslinger and 35 other writers then turned to the federal government in an open letter via Carl Hanser Verlag , demanding "this case be investigated immediately".

After the writers' association PEN and the Goethe-Institut campaigned for the lifting of the entry ban, Trojanow was allowed to enter the United States. On November 14, 2013, he took part in a discussion at the Goethe Institute in New York with the journalist Liesl Schillinger and the American PEN President Suzanne Nossel on “Surveillance and the naked new world”. Trojanow sees shocking parallels between the practices of the Stasi and the NSA, which in his opinion formed a state within a state:

“In the 1950s, the Stasi was a relatively small organization. It then grew bigger and bigger in the 1980s until it mutated into an uncontrollable monster that was also an expensive and inefficient job machine. "

- Ilija Trojanow : Spiegel Online

This threatens the USA at least since the revelations of Edward Snowden became known. He does not see serious efforts by the German federal government:

“Right now, during the coalition negotiations in Germany, our interior minister is demanding that the Federal Intelligence Service be given powers similar to those of the NSA. According to the motto: What they have, we want too. "

- Ilija Trojanow : Spiegel Online

Basic democratic initiatives

Demonstrations
Demonstration of the Pirate Party against PRISM during the Berlin visit of US President Barack Obama in June 2013
Protesters in front of the Dagger Complex (July 2013)
“Yes we scan” demonstration at Checkpoint Charlie

Daniel Bangert, who lives in Griesheim , invited people to take a walk to the so-called Dagger Complex via Facebook at the beginning of July 2013 to see the "NSA spies" up close. This was intended as a "fun activity" to draw attention to the surveillance scandal surrounding PRISM. The US military police then contacted the German police. This then spoke to the organizer of the "walk" and suggested that he register the "walk" as a demonstration, which he then did.

On Saturday, July 27, 2013 there were demonstrations in 39 German cities at the same time, in which several thousand people took part. An alliance of various organizations and parties called for this under the name StopWatchingUs . Many calls have been made to end Internet surveillance and protect Snowden.

On July 25, 2013, Markus Beckedahl called for the 1st Big BND Walk on July 29 in front of the new BND building in Berlin. About 200 people are said to have been present.

Between 10,000 and 20,000 demonstrators are said to have taken part in the freedom instead of fear demo on September 7, 2013 in Berlin.

On July 26, 2014 rallies and demonstrations took place again to mark the one-year anniversary of the StopWatchingUs alliance . Some rallies were held in front of secret service locations. A demonstration train started from Bad Aibling to the Bad Aibling station in Mietraching.

Petitions, open letters

On July 25, 2013, the author Juli Zeh wrote an open letter to the Chancellor. In it she criticized the apparent development of Germany towards a surveillance state, the approval of the actions of foreign secret services against German citizens by the Federal Government and the inaction of the Federal Chancellor. The open letter was also published as an online petition on Change.org . By the time the printed signatures were handed over, almost 68,000 supporters took part and signed the petition. The handover itself took place on September 18, 2013 as part of a small demonstration in front of the Federal Chancellery. Among the demonstrators were among others the writers Juli Zeh, Ingo Schulze , Tanja Dückers and Julia Franck . Since no entry was granted to the Federal Chancellery, the group moved on to the Federal Press Office. There the deputy government spokeswoman, Sabine Heimbach, took 15 minutes to listen to the request and to accept the petition.

In the Hamburg declaration against total surveillance, more than 700 lawyers and more than 3000 citizens of other professional groups (as of October 16, 2013) opposed “total surveillance of the German population regardless of cause or suspicion”. They asked the federal government to call in the US and British ambassadors to formally place the demand that the surveillance be stopped immediately. The EU should examine all possible measures against the UK. The negotiations between Europe on a transatlantic free trade agreement with the USA should be interrupted and existing agreements such as the Safe Harbor Agreement and the exchange of passenger data should be suspended until the total surveillance by the USA is ended. In addition to calling for all NSA sites in Germany to be closed , they called for the integrity of the German networks to be checked and for German intelligence services to be better controlled - reports to control bodies should be made subject to oath. The initiators of the declaration called on all lawyers and citizens to sign the declaration.

The Snowden confidante Sarah Harrison , who entered Germany on November 2nd, wrote an open letter to the German population. She wants to stay in Germany for the time being, as her British homeland, where almost every report falls into the “terrorism” category, is no longer safe. Encouraged by protests from the German population, she campaigned for Snowden to be granted asylum . WikiLeaks is fighting "against the secrecy of governments", the mass spying of the population and against the persecution of those "who speak this truth". WikiLeaks has won the "battle for Snowden's immediate future, but the war continues."

On December 10, 2013, an international appeal was published by 560 writers from 83 countries, including five Nobel Prize winners for literature . They protested "against the systematic surveillance on the Internet by secret services". The signatories of the appeal, which was printed in 31 newspapers that day, included Umberto Eco , Tom Stoppard , Paul Auster , Jonathan Littell , JM Coetzee , Elfriede Jelinek , TC Boyle and Peter Sloterdijk . The authors called for “defending democracy in the digital world”. They demanded that every citizen should have the right to have a say in the extent to which their data is collected, stored and evaluated, and emphasized the presumption of innocence as a central achievement of civilization. The writers appealed to the United Nations to pass an “International Convention on Digital Rights”.

Snowden proposed for the Federal Cross of Merit and the Nobel Peace Prize

The politician Brigitte Pothmer , labor market policy spokeswoman for Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen , suggested Edward Snowden in a letter to the Foreign Office for the Federal Cross of Merit on October 31, 2013 .

"Snowden's revelations can help to clear up the massive violations of civil rights and contribute to the fact that the rulers in Germany are committed to their task of upholding the constitution and protecting data and privacy."

- Brigitte Pothmer : Zeit Online

Gregor Gysi , leader of the left-wing parliamentary group in the German Bundestag , suggested that Edward Snowden be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

“Because of the changes we have seen, I propose that Edward Snowden be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He deserves it. "

- Gregor Gysi : German Bundestag

Austria

In the course of the debate over the affair in June 2013, the possible existence of an alleged secret contract between the Army Intelligence Agency and the NSA became known. Since the permanent subcommittee of the parliamentary national defense committee, which was set up to control the services, refused to provide information, the parliamentarian Peter Pilz filed a complaint with the public prosecutor at the end of July. The Austrian Ministry of Justice commissioned a report to check whether it is relevant to criminal law. In May 2014, the public prosecutor closed the investigation.

The Austrian Ministry of the Interior presented the US Ambassador to Austria William C. Eacho with a catalog of questions in mid-June that was compared with the catalog of questions from the German Ministry of the Interior. On July 9, the US Ambassador orally delivered the answers to the questionnaire to the Home Office.

According to media reports, US intelligence services operated a listening post in a villa in Pötzleinsdorf , which should be able to monitor 70 percent of Vienna's Internet and telecommunications traffic, with direct access to a fiber optic cable. BMI and BVT rejected these reports. According to information from the US embassy, ​​which had owned the building since the 1970s, it was a branch of the Open Source Center . The facility was guarded by police and a private security service.

On September 8, 2013, around 150 residents and photographers walked to the so-called NSA villa after a cyclist tried to take a photo of it and was then illegally forced by an officer to identify himself. The event was officially passed off as an afternoon stroll by the architecture friends of Vienna . The politician Peter Pilz also took part in the walk . Afterwards, critical comments were posted on Facebook and Twitter under the hashtag #NSAvilla. Pilz announced that it would convene the National Security Council. After the whistleblower and former NSA employee Thomas Drake claimed in an interview that "area-wide surveillance is standard practice", the BVT began an investigation. Defense Minister Gerald Klug announced in November 2013 that he would inform the MPs in the secret National Defense Committee about details of the cooperation with the NSA, but did not answer any questions from MPs due to the confidentiality obligation in the committee.

Another NSA high post was located in a non-publicly accessible "maintenance structure" of the IZD Tower in Vienna's Donau City , with the Vienna International Center , the seat of UN organizations such as UNIDO , UNHCR , IAEA and others, less than a hundred meters away Location is. This structure is likely to be the “Vienna Annex” described by Edward Snowden.

Scandinavia

On August 24, 2013, the British Observer published an open letter from the editors-in-chief of four leading Northern European daily newspapers. You turned to the government in London and expressed great concern about freedom of the press in Britain. The editors-in-chief of the Danish newspaper Politiken ( Bo Lidegaard ), the Finnish Helsingin Sanomat (Riikka Venäläinen), the Aftenposten (Hilde Haugsgjerd) from Norway and the Swedish Dagens Nyheter (Peter Wolodarski) called on Prime Minister David Cameron to put his government back “under the to rank leading defenders of the freedom of the press and open debate ”.

According to her, one could have different views on exactly where the balance between state security and personal freedom lies, but a public debate about it must be possible. The strength of democracy lies in public debate. They referred to the previous events around the arrest of Glenn Greenwald's partner and the GCHQ's approach to the Guardian.

Japan

In 2011 the NSA asked Japan to tap into the transpacific fiber optic cables mainly to China for them. China is playing an increasingly important role in the global network and has been the nation with the most Internet users for years - the NSA wanted to gain access to the data streams here too. Japan should play a role for the Asian region like the British secret service GCHQ for Europe. According to published documents by Edward Snowden, there is an agreement between the NSA and the British GCHQ relating to the monitoring of data and telephone traffic in Europe over transatlantic fiber optic cables passing through the UK. But the government in Tokyo refused: Even if it were really about preventing terrorist actions, broad surveillance of telecommunications processes was simply not allowed. However, legal restrictions alone do not lead a secret service to restrict its activities in case of doubt. In Japan, however, there was a lack of resources. Even if the evaluation of the data streams in the fiber optic backbones is highly automated, many people are still required to be involved. In the USA alone, the NSA had around 30,000 permanent employees and can also rely on external contractors. The entire Japanese secret service apparatus, taken together, does not even come close to this personnel strength.

Latin America

Spain, France and Italy (red) denied the overflight permit. The plane landed in Austria (yellow).

On his way home from Moscow on July 2, 2013, the Bolivian President Evo Morales was forced to land in Vienna because France, Italy, Spain and Portugal had given his plane an overflight ban on suspicion that Snowden was on board. Thereupon the states of the South American trade association Mercosur condemned the "aggression" of the EU states during a meeting of the association on July 12, 2013 and decided to recall their ambassadors from the respective countries. Full Mercosur members Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela called for an explanation and an apology for the incident. The heads of state also reaffirmed their support for Snowden's right to asylum. Bolivia, Venezuela and Ecuador had already offered him asylum. Morales reported at the meeting of heads of state that 17 minutes before landing, the US had filed an application for Snowden's extradition to the Bolivian State Department, which was an indication of their involvement in the refusal to fly.

Ecuador

Ecuador , where Edward Snowden had applied for asylum, among other things, canceled a trade agreement with the US and thus waived tariff concessions after the US had threatened such a step if Snowden's asylum application was granted.

Brazil

In response to reports that the government was being spied on, the Brazilian government decided to run its own fiber optic cables to government offices in neighboring countries in South America. Further measures were initiated, such as the construction of a new satellite by a consortium led by the French company Thales Alenia Space . So far, the government has used a Mexican satellite for its communications.

Worldwide

Internet structure

At a conference in Montevideo , Uruguay, all organizations responsible for the structure and development of the Internet (a) adopted a joint declaration in view of the surveillance scandals in the past, in which they spoke out in favor of a globalization of the technical Internet infrastructure. For historical reasons, most organizations have their headquarters in the USA and are largely subject to US jurisdiction. Furthermore, the conference participants warned of a nation-state fragmentation of the Internet, which would seriously damage the trust of global Internet users.

Software directory PRISM Break

With PRISM Break a project was created that lists free and open source programs for possible circumvention of surveillance and espionage programs. Due to the open source code, the listed alternatives should be much safer from backdoors and thus also from interception measures. The data protection foundation named PRISM Break in their practical tips.

The Intercept

Jeremy Scahill
Laura Poitras
Glenn Greenwald

The three journalists and authors Laura Poitras , Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald founded The Intercept at the beginning of 2014 after a few months of advance and rumors , which should initially enable the preparation of Snowden's materials, financially and editorially independently:

“A primary function of The Intercept is to insist upon and defend our press freedoms from those who wish to infringe them. We are determined to move forward with what we believe is essential reporting in the public interest and with a commitment to the ideal that a truly free and independent press is a vital component of any healthy democratic society. We believe the prime value of journalism is that it imposes transparency, and thus accountability, on those who wield the greatest governmental and corporate power. Our journalists will be not only permitted, but encouraged, to pursue stories without regard to whom they might alienate. "

“The basic function of The Intercept is to insist on freedom of the press and to defend it against those who violate it. We are determined to move forward in what we consider to be essential reporting in the public interest . Our dedication is to the ideal of the truly free and independent press as a vital component in any healthy democratic society . We believe that the fundamental task of journalism is to create transparency and to show the accountability of those who have the greatest political and corporate power. Our journalists are not only allowed but even recommended to follow stories regardless of who may be turned against them. "

Legal background

European Union

The surveillance and espionage affair affects fundamental and human rights , for example, according to the European Parliament , the right to informational self-determination is derived from Article 8, Paragraph 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights :

"Everyone has the right to respect for their private and family life, their home and their correspondence."

- ECHR Art. 8 para. 1

Germany

The Federal Constitutional Court recognized in the census judgment :

“The right to informational self-determination would not be compatible with a social order and a legal order that enables it, in which citizens can no longer know who knows what about them, when and on what occasion. Anyone who is unsure whether deviating behavior is noted at any time and permanently stored, used or passed on as information will try not to attract attention through such behavior. […] This would not only impair the individual's chances of development, but also the common good, because self-determination is an elementary functional condition of a free, democratic community based on the ability to act and participate in its citizens. From this follows: Free development of the personality under the modern conditions of data processing requires the protection of the individual against unlimited collection, storage, use and disclosure of his personal data. This protection is therefore encompassed by the fundamental right of Article 2, Paragraph 1 in conjunction with Article 1, Paragraph 1 of the Basic Law. In this respect, the basic right guarantees the individual's right to decide for themselves how their personal data are disclosed and used. "

Film documentaries

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Global Surveillance and Espionage Affair  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Technical background

Chronologies

Political comments

Individual evidence

  1. Kevin M. Gallagher: NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: "I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things" ( English , video 12m34s) In: YouTube . Kevin M. Gallagher. June 9, 2013. Retrieved May 14, 2015.
  2. Wolf Wiedmann-Schmidt : Journalist: Guardian reporter Ewen MacAskill: "The secret services want everything" . In: Journalist Online . July 28, 2013. Archived from the original on May 14, 2015. Retrieved on May 14, 2015.
  3. ^ David E. Sanger , Eric Schmitt: Snowden Used Low-Cost Tool to Best NSA ( English ) In: The New York Times . February 8, 2014. Retrieved May 14, 2015.
  4. a b Andreas Wilkens: PRISM whistleblower avows himself . In: Heise Online . June 9, 2014. Retrieved May 14, 2015.
  5. ^ A b Johannes Kuhn: Prism Whistleblower: Obama Chases Edward Snowden . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . June 10, 2013. Accessed May 14, 2015.
  6. Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill and Laura Poitras: Edward Snowden: the whistleblower behind the NSA surveillance revelations ( English ) In: The Guardian . June 10, 2013. Retrieved July 11, 2013.
  7. Glenn Greenwald, Ewen MacAskill: Boundless Informant: the NSA's secret tool to track global surveillance data ( English ) In: The Guardian . June 11, 2013. Retrieved July 11, 2013.
  8. a b nsc: NSA surveillance affair: US defends Prism as "life-saving" . In: Zeit Online . June 8, 2013. Accessed May 14, 2015.
  9. Florian Rötzer : Snowden: NSA has been hacking Internet backbones in China and Hong Kong since 2009 . In: telepolis . Heise Online. June 13, 2013. Retrieved May 14, 2015.
  10. Lana Lam, Stephen Chen: EXCLUSIVE: US spies on Chinese mobile phone companies, steals SMS data: Edward Snowden ( English ) In: South China Morning Post . June 22, 2013. Accessed May 14, 2015.
  11. Interview with Edward Snowden in SPIEGEL: NSA and BND are working together . In: Spiegel Online . July 7, 2013. Retrieved May 14, 2015.
  12. Steve Fidel: Utah's $ 1.5 billion cyber-security center under way ( English ) In: Desert News . January 6, 2011. Archived from the original on July 22, 2013. Retrieved July 22, 2013.
  13. ^ Frank Patalong : Bluffdale: The NSA's data collection center . In: Der Spiegel . June 8, 2013. Archived from the original on August 20, 2013. Retrieved on August 11, 2013.
  14. ^ Howard Berkes: Amid Data Controversy, NSA Builds Its Biggest Data Farm. National Public Radio , June 10, 2013, accessed July 1, 2013 .
  15. Kashmir Hill: Blueprints Of NSA's Ridiculously Expensive Data Center In Utah Suggest It Holds Less Info Than Thought . July 24, 2013. Retrieved July 29, 2013.
  16. Chris Duckett: NSA hunger demands 29 petabytes of data a day . In: zdnet.com . August 12, 2013. Archived from the original on September 2, 2013. Retrieved October 24, 2013.
  17. NSA: The National Security Agency: Missions, Authorities, Oversight and Partnerships ( English , PDF 117 KB) In: nsa.gov . National Security Agency. August 9, 2013. Archived from the original on December 9, 2014. Retrieved on May 10, 2015.
  18. Werner Pluta: Surveillance: NSA stores traffic data from Verizon . In: golem.de . June 6, 2013. Archived from the original on September 5, 2013. Retrieved October 24, 2013.
  19. Glenn Greenwald: NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily ( English ) In: The Guardian . June 6, 2013. Accessed May 10, 2015.
  20. Martin Holland: US Secret Court: Connection data are not part of privacy . In: Heise Online . September 18, 2013. Retrieved May 10, 2015.
  21. Martin Holland: NSA affair: Secret service comprehensively analyzes social relationships . In: Heise Online . September 30, 2013. Retrieved May 10, 2015.
  22. Matthias Kremp: NSA is said to have infiltrated 50,000 networks worldwide . In: Spiegel Online . November 24, 2013. Retrieved May 10, 2015.
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