Report: German spy agency targets foreign reporters' phones

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Report: German spy agency targets foreign reporters' phones
Updated 11:42 am, Friday, February 24, 2017


BERLIN (AP) — The German weekly Der Spiegel reports that the country's spy agency had at least 50 numbers and email addresses of journalists among its surveillance targets.

Spiegel reported Friday that a list seen by the magazine contained over a dozen numbers belonging to the BBC in Afghanistan and London. It says a New York Times phone number in Afghanistan and several cell and satellite phone numbers for the Reuters news agency in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria were also on the list.

Germany's foreign intelligence agency, known by its acronym BND, declined to comment directly on the report.

In a statement sent to The Associated Press, the agency said it only communicates with the German government and lawmakers on parliament's intelligence oversight committee about "operative aspects" of its work.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/world/article/Report-German-spy-agency-targets-foreign-10956872.php

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(Short article, no more at link.)

[tenorly]

1. The Lives of Others.

As a former intelligence analyst mentioned on public radio when the movie came out in '06, "we in intelligence can't help but laugh at how quaint they (the Stasi) were."

[Hestia]

2. Sure, they were quaint, but they held the entire country in fear for decades. Everybody was

under the impression that they were being spied upon, even if they weren't. We are already reading reports from gov't employees that they are being followed and watched, by whom, they do not know.

I love that movie. HWG's delight in reading a banned book. One act reverberates decades later.