Germany Says U.S. Spying Requires Serious Discussion
By Patrick Donahue Feb 28, 2014 7:59 AM ET
Germany and the U.S. need to have a “serious” discussion about their dispute over the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance before the two allies move on, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said.
On a two-day trip to Washington, Steinmeier told his counterpart, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, that the two countries have differing views on the relationship between security, freedom and privacy. Earlier this week, Steinmeier dismissed a “no-spy treaty” that German negotiators are struggling to establish with U.S. intelligence officials.
“We just have to take seriously that on this question we perhaps have a different assessment,” Steinmeier told reporters after talks with Kerry yesterday. “There’s no use just going into negotiations on a treaty. We first have to become conscious of the differences.”
The top German envoy arrived as officials in Berlin grow frustrated at the pace of talks since revelations last year that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone was caught in the dragnet of U.S. signals intelligence. Merkel’s coordinator for trans-Atlantic relations said this month that Germany’s push for a no-spy accord was headed for failure amid resistance from President Barack Obama’s administration.
Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters, known as GCHQ, intercepted and stored images of millions of Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) webcam-chat users in a program code-named Optic Nerve, the Guardian newspaper reported today, citing documents provided by former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-27/germany-says-u-s-spying-requires-serious-discussion.html
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