NSA Blowback: Counterespionage Pushed to Step Up

[unhappycamper]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-counterintelligence-pushed-to-do-more-to-fight-nsa-spying-a-931135.html



Amid the continuing NSA scandal, the German intelligence community is being pushed to do more to counter US spying. But with limited resources and a complex bureaucracy, that may not be easy.

NSA Blowback: Counterespionage Pushed to Step Up
By Jörg Diehl
October 31, 2013 – 06:04 PM

Perhaps the proudest moment in the recent history of German counterespionage was a stealth operation conducted in October 2011, when an elite GSG 9 unit crept into an unremarkable, white-painted house in the city of Marburg and caught a housewife operating a short-wave radio. The woman was so startled, she fell off her chair.

The 47-year-old, who went by the name Heidrun Anschlag, and her husband Andreas, allegedly 53, were agents working for the Russian foreign intelligence agency SVR. For years, they lived a quiet, inconspicuous life in Germany, all the while reporting back to Moscow. In July 2013, the Stuttgart Higher Regional Court sentenced the couple, who have a daughter, to five and a half years and six years in prison, respectively. Since then, the Anschlags have been left hoping a proposed exchange of agents will go through, and complaining about the prison food in Germany's federal state of Baden-Württemberg.

As much as the successful search that led to the Anschlags' arrest pleased German authorities, a great deal of the credit for the operation actually goes to Germany's ally, the United States. As is so often the case, Germany's big brother provided the crucial intelligence that led to the operation. Similarly, in the case of Manfred K., currently on trial at the Koblenz Higher Regional Court for treason and espionage, it was NATO that alerted German authorities.

One could easily get the impression that German counterespionage agents aren't entirely capable of doing their jobs without outside help.