Germans Rejected: US Unlikely to Offer 'No-Spy' Agreement

[unhappycamper]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/us-declines-no-spy-pact-with-germany-but-might-reveal-snowden-secrets-a-933006.html



Senior German intelligence officials met with their NSA and CIA counterparts in the US last week to start trust-rebuilding efforts between the estranged allies. While a "no-spy" agreement seems unlikely, Merkel might learn what Snowden could still reveal.

Germans Rejected: US Unlikely to Offer 'No-Spy' Agreement
By Melanie Amann, Hubert Gude, Jörg Schindler and Fidelius Schmid
November 12, 2013 – 01:25 PM

Hans-Georg Maassen, president of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany's domestic intelligence agency, and Gerhard Schindler, director of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the country's foreign intelligence agency, had a great deal they wanted to discuss last Monday when they entered the square, black building in Fort Meade, Maryland, that is headquarters to America's National Security Agency (NSA). The two German emissaries had quite a few questions concerning the American wiretapping that has caused such damage to sensitive German-American relations. Since when was Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone monitored, they wanted to know, and has that surveillance truly ended? Which members of the government were or still are affected by the NSA's spying program? And how can trust be rebuilt?

In a bug-proof, windowless room, NSA Director Keith Alexander gave his two "dear" guests a demonstratively warm reception. He spent around an hour engaging in the straight talk they sought. But, in terms of content, the American general didn't give the two top German officials much. Asked about the accusations of espionage, he apologized and said he couldn't say anything about that. Nor did the visitors learn whether an extension on the roof of the US Embassy in Berlin, right near the Brandenburg Gate, actually houses spying equipment.

Going in, the two German intelligence agency directors knew it would be tough to wrest any information from the Americans, who according to Merkel's chief of staff, Ronald Pofalla, have now acknowledged "the political dimension" of reporting done on this subject. Still, the meeting last Monday quickly demonstrated just how bumpy the road to rebuilding trust will be, especially since Maassen and Schindler didn't achieve any movement at all on the other request they approached their American partners with: the German government's desire for an agreement to refrain from spying on each other.

There won't be a "no-spy" agreement was the message the two German emissaries received both at the NSA and subsequently in Langley, Virginia, where they met with CIA Director John O. Brennan. At most, the US is willing to consider a vague agreement between the intelligence services, which currently exists in a draft version. As the lead negotiator on the German side, BND Director Schindler plans to hammer out the exact wording of the agreement via video conferences with the NSA in the coming weeks.