US Government may have tapped Angela Merkel's Mobile Phone.

[Mr Bean]

Nobody in government uses cheap phones. Are you saying Obama does so?

Three years ago the President had his own personnel phone and his handlers phone. If you somehow ended up with the Presidents phone number it was the handlers phone which was changed about once a month to a new number as part of coms job is giving out that new number month to month to those he thought needed it.

The Presidential personnel phone was supposed to be used for purely personnel family stuff, while the handler carried the locked down phone which was changed monthly. Back during the Bush days there was a different setup but I heard they had a stack of locked down sim cards to swap into the phone Bush staff carried for him.

The American President almost never carries anything on his person. The handler will have his wallet for example to hand back right before they go into a restaurant, to be handed back to the handler as they leave. Likewise the phones.

[energiewende]

All this shows is that the NSA isn't asleep on the job. And I don't share any moral outrage, either. Ordinary citizens against whom there are no court-approved search warrants may be innocent bystanders, but Angela Merkel is the leader of a major power and therefore very much a player in the game.

A major power whose soldiers happen to be fighting and dying alongside yours in Afghanistan, for no particular benefit to themselves at that. I'm sure they will be truly overwhelmed by this awe-inspiring display of gratitude.

How many more German soldiers died because of Merkel's phone being tapped?

Between adults this isn't even something to be commented on. Everyone knows it's happening, everyone does it; if Merkel didn't at least suspect, she's a fool, and I think she's a lot less foolish and more ruthless than I am. It's like your President going to an Air Show and complaining that USSR/France/US has a better jet fighter than your country. Of course they did that, that's what states do. Just smile and try to do better next time.

edit: I think Siege has by far the best idea. The EU-US trade agreement is also something that has turned into a trainwreck with various powerful protectionist members of the EU complaining that they basically don't like free trade much and can't we have unfree trade instead? This gives the EU an excuse to break off negotiations and blame it on the US if it comes to that. This is stage managed news designed to appeal to the emotions of the ignorant masses.

[Thanas]

I don't think anybody of prominence expects the US to not spy on its allies. I'm much more interested in the timing of this news.

A little context for the uninitiated: a package of EU-wide data protection laws drafted by the European Commission is making its way through Brussels at the moment. To become law, the proposals need to be adopted by the European Parliament and by the Member States in the European Council. The Justice Ministers of the Council discussed it on 7 October; the Committee for Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs of the European Parliament backed it 49 to 1 with 3 abstentions on 10 October; and it's slated for discussion by the heads of state and government at the meeting of the European Council of 24 and 25 October. President Barroso of the European Commission has called for the revised data protection laws to be adopted before the end of the European Parliament's term in June, and the next meeting of the Justice Ministers is in December.

Right now the proposal appears to be breezing its way through, but I would hardly be surprised if someone in the German government decided to orchestrate a little extra consensus ahead of the meeting of the Council by releasing one more juicy story about the wanton disregard for EU citizens' privacy shown by American intel cowboys. Now Merkel can play the aggrieved victim, everybody clucks their tongues in disapproval at the NSA, and the Commission (whose Commissioner for Digital Agenda earlier called Edward Snowden's revelations "helpful") scores a big victory ahead of the elections in May. Everybody wins! Except the Americans, of course, but then they shot themselves in the foot with their own damn gun so yay for Old Continent politics!

Of course it could also be a complete coincidence that this came out right when it did two days ahead of a big meeting of the heads of state of the European Union that just so happens to have the digital economy on its agenda, but really? Coincidence at this level of politics?

I don't think it is Merkel who is leaking this. By all accounts she is the strongest US ally on data protection and lobbied for several safeguards to be stopped to make it easier for the US. Leaking it makes no sense for her.

[Thanas]

What is especially ironic is that the NSA has always said this was for terrorism. What terrorists do they think Merkel regularly talks to?


(Sarcasm. I know the USA is just using terrorism as an excuse)

[Thanas]

Nobody in government uses cheap phones. Are you saying Obama does so?

Three years ago the President had his own personnel phone and his handlers phone. If you somehow ended up with the Presidents phone number it was the handlers phone which was changed about once a month to a new number as part of coms job is giving out that new number month to month to those he thought needed it.

The Presidential personnel phone was supposed to be used for purely personnel family stuff, while the handler carried the locked down phone which was changed monthly. Back during the Bush days there was a different setup but I heard they had a stack of locked down sim cards to swap into the phone Bush staff carried for him.

The American President almost never carries anything on his person. The handler will have his wallet for example to hand back right before they go into a restaurant, to be handed back to the handler as they leave. Likewise the phones.

So what? None of that changes anything, nor is it bad opsec for Merkel to use a pricier phone which changes as well.

[Kitsune]

What is especially ironic is that the NSA has always said this was for terrorism. What terrorists do they think Merkel regularly talks to?

She is a secret Muslim just like Obama

[Siege]

I don't think it is Merkel who is leaking this. By all accounts she is the strongest US ally on data protection and lobbied for several safeguards to be stopped to make it easier for the US. Leaking it makes no sense for her.

I'm not at all clued into Merkel's position but she did make her phonecall to Obama one day ahead of the start of the meeting of the European Council. If she didn't support these measures she's chosen a supremely awkward moment to make that call and 'I was trying to help but you forced my hand' isn't an unheard of political manoeuver. But that way lies idle armchair John Le Carré conspiracycrafting; we'd have to know who "prompted" Der Spiegel's research to make a definitive call and good luck finding that out.

[Thanas]

I'm not at all clued into Merkel's position but she did make her phonecall to Obama one day ahead of the start of the meeting of the European Council. If she didn't support these measures she's chosen a supremely awkward moment to make that call and 'I was trying to help but you forced my hand' isn't an unheard of political manoeuver. But that way lies idle armchair John Le Carré conspiracycrafting; we'd have to know who "prompted" Der Spiegel's research to make a definitive call and good luck finding that out.

Nah, Merkel just wishes for this to go away IMO. None of her previous action suggest that she particularly cares or is against USA actions. I think the releases as well as the upcoming grand coalition force her hand.

[Siege]

As we're on the topic of forcing hands:

Merkel calls US spying breach of trust

The German chancellor says trust with the US has to be restored, insisting that there must be no spying among friends.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has accused the United States of an unacceptable breach of trust after allegations that the US bugged her personal mobile phone, and she suggested data-sharing agreements with Washington may need revising.

Arriving for a two-day summit in Brussels on Thursday where the broad economic and social policy agenda has been overshadowed by allegations of eavesdropping by the US National Security Agency against Italy, France and Germany, Merkel said she had told President Barack Obama in a telephone conversation late on Wednesday that the acts were unacceptable.

"It's not just about me but about every German citizen. We need to have trust in our allies and partners, and this trust must now be established once again," she told reporters.

"I repeat that spying among friends is not at all acceptable against anyone, and that goes for every citizen in Germany."

The stern words follow an announcement by the German government on Wednesday that it had seen evidence suggesting the chancellor's mobile was "monitored" by the NSA.

Germany's foreign minister has summoned the US ambassador to Berlin to discuss the issue, an event diplomats said had rarely happened in the past 60 years.

White House spokesman Jay Carney later on Thursday responded to Merkels remarks, saying that Obama and the chancellor had spoken and that the US was reviewing the way it gathered intelligence.

"Obama made clear what out policy is. We have diplomatic channels to discuss these issues. We are also in a review of the way we gather our intelligence and making sure we balance the way we gather information and privacy."

Carney said on Wednesday that Obama had assured Merkel in their telephone call that the United States "is not monitoring and will not monitor" her communications, leaving open the possibility that it had happened in the past.

The affair dredges up memories of eavesdropping by the Stasi secret police in the former East Germany, where Merkel grew up, and is an emotive topic for many Germans.

Following the unceasing flow of leaks by former US data analyst Edward Snowden, which revealed the reach of the NSA's data-collection programmes, Washington finds itself at odds with a host of important allies, from Brazil to Saudi Arabia.

Germany's frustration follows outrage in France after Le Monde newspaper reported the NSA had collected tens of thousands of French phone records between December 2012 and January 2013, and an Italian news magazine reported on Thursday that the NSA had monitored sensitive Italian telecommunications.

The revelations could have an impact on major legislative and trade initiatives between the United States and the European Union, with some German lawmakers saying negotiations over an EU-US free-trade agreement should be suspended.

Merkel, who has previously discussed a "no spying" agreement with the United States, hinted that data-sharing deals with Washington may need to be relooked at, a potentially damaging blow for US efforts to collect counter-terrorism information.

"To this end, we need to ask what we need, which data security agreements we need, what transparency we need between the United States of America and Europe," Merkel said.

"We are allies facing challenges together. But such an alliance can only be built on the basis of trust."

Merkel and Hollande discussed the spying allegations one-to-one before the Brussels summit, with Hollande suggesting beforehand that he intended to put the issue formally on the agenda.

Monday's edition of The Guardian has another article on the worldwide backlash. Aside from the obvious political hay-making I'm interested to find out exactly how much this indiscriminate spying nonsense is going to backfire on the USA. I don't think we can survey the sheer impact of the information Edward Snowden has released yet but I'm convinced the benefits of these dragnet operations can't possibly have outweighed the sheer scale of the backlash. Congrats on unifying your previously divided opponents and handing free political capital to every anti-American party out there, folks! I'm sure whatever you got from Merkel's or Rousseff's phones is worth their nations having one more reason to in the future blow you off in favor of regional allies!

[Beowulf]

What is especially ironic is that the NSA has always said this was for terrorism. What terrorists do they think Merkel regularly talks to?


(Sarcasm. I know the USA is just using terrorism as an excuse)

Well, you built the network for anti-terrorism, but it's there, so you might as well use it for other stuff too.

[Irbis]

Well, they tried to downplay it in election cycles and considering the USA has not responded to a single one of her questions it might have been simply too much.

You mean, they ignored her sad attempt to appeal to her home public?

Merkel knows what USA/UK did was completely legal according to German law, after all, before terrorists we had commies, and like any obedient vassal Germans signed appropriate treaty:

Germany nixes surveillance pact with US, Britain

08/02/13: The Miami Herald reports Germany canceled a Cold War-era surveillance pact with the United States and Britain on Friday in response to revelations by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden about those countries' alleged electronic eavesdropping operations. Chancellor Angela Merkel had raised the issue of alleged National Security Agency spying with President Barack Obama when he visited Berlin in June. But with weeks to go before national elections, opposition parties had demanded clarity about the extent to which her government knew of the intelligence gathering operations directed at Germany and German citizens. Government officials have insisted that US and British intelligence were never given permission to break Germany's strict privacy laws. But they conceded that an agreement dating back to the late 1960s gave the US, Britain and France the right to request German authorities to conduct surveillance operations within Germany to protect their troops stationed there. A German official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the cancellation would have no practical consequences.

So, yeah, Germany knew all along, if USA even bothered to tell them all details, and despite yet another public sale move, treaty cancellation, nothing will probably change (bolded part).

A little context for the uninitiated: a package of EU-wide data protection laws drafted by the European Commission is making its way through Brussels at the moment. To become law, the proposals need to be adopted by the European Parliament and by the Member States in the European Council.

That package is completely laughable, though. Nothing will come out of this.

[Siege]

Do you really think that nothing will come of a EU-wide directive to shift data protection away from the Member States toward a Brussels level? I find that very unlikely. If the Commission wants something they want it for a reason, and even if that reason doesn't end with the well-being of all European citizens the power over privacy it gives to the EU is hardly something I would describe as 'nothing'. This is extremely important, and the EU is at the forefront of it whether you like it or not, because the Member States are obviously incapable of securing their citizens' right to privacy, as the NSA was so helpful to demonstrate.

[slebetman]

Wait, does the US government (and people in general) really expect to be spied on by European governments? If so, why does the US (government, media and people in general) typically react in such over-the-top fashion when someone is caught "spying"? To the point of sometimes executing people (granted it's usually "enemy states" that get caught).

[Simon_Jester]

I'm not sure I quite follow, slebetman. Could you expand on "does the US government... really expect to be spied on?"

[Thanas]

So, it turns out that the NSA did not manage to crack Merkel's official phone. Instead they got access to her phone she used as head of her political party (for political reasons she is not legally allowed to use one phone for both) which was not encrypted. Apparently the secure phones are very hard to handle and very slow due to the heavy encryption.

[Thanas]

And here are the Brits, as ever leading the fight against privacy protection and basic rights:

France and the European commission led the push for new European legislation on data protection by next spring, while Britain dragged its heels, arguing tjat it was more important to get the complex legislation right than to rush it through.

"The UK is leading the charge against it," a senior EU official said. "The UK position is bewildering. They're trying to delay it."

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/o ... ies-not-on

[energiewende]

What is especially ironic is that the NSA has always said this was for terrorism. What terrorists do they think Merkel regularly talks to?

Signals intelligence for diplomatic purposes long predates the war on terrorism. Politicians' and ambassadors' signals were being monitored as early as WWI.

And here are the Brits, as ever leading the fight against...basic rights:

Now that's just petty. WWII? Cold War?

[Thanas]

Now that's just petty. WWII? Cold War?

Have you been living under a rock and missed the last 23 years of failed attempts by the EU to get some privacy rights or some civil rights chapter, attempts that most prominently failed due to British opposition? Need I remind you of the EU basic rights charter?

[salm]

The phone Merkel used was a non secure private phone. Apparently she isn´t even allowed to carry one like that for security reasons.
So, is she a moron or are there legitimate reasons to use such a phone?

[Simon_Jester]

If she's not allowed to use a government-provided high security phone for political calls (in her role as a leader of the Christian Democrats), then that would explain her using an unsecure phone for that purpose.

It also makes the NSA's hacking less justifiable, because while the NSA might want to monitor decisions made by another government, it has absolutely no standing to be meddling in another nation's political affairs; they have no more right to do that than the Watergate burglars did.

[energiewende]

Now that's just petty. WWII? Cold War?

Have you been living under a rock and missed the last 23 years of failed attempts by the EU to get some privacy rights or some civil rights chapter, attempts that most prominently failed due to British opposition? Need I remind you of the EU basic rights charter?

Ok, but quite a backtrack from "ever" to "the past 23 years" and "basic rights" to "a proposed part of the EU basic rights charter" (and, worse, a part that apparently considered sufficiently unimportant to not have been included in the various international agreement the UK already joined).

While I don't necessarily agree with the UK on this (nor am I sure exactly what their position is), I would point out that if relatively benign signals intelligence routes are blocked, invasive physical monitoring and searches is likely to replace it unless we first build a consensus on not trying to aggressively pre-empt terrorist acts.

[salm]

If she's not allowed to use a government-provided high security phone for political calls (in her role as a leader of the Christian Democrats), then that would explain her using an unsecure phone for that purpose.

It also makes the NSA's hacking less justifiable, because while the NSA might want to monitor decisions made by another government, it has absolutely no standing to be meddling in another nation's political affairs; they have no more right to do that than the Watergate burglars did.

It is my understanding from several news articles that she isn´t allowed to use an unsecure phone at all. I could be wrong, though, and don´t know how to find out if it is really the case.

[Gaidin]

If she's not allowed to use a government-provided high security phone for political calls (in her role as a leader of the Christian Democrats), then that would explain her using an unsecure phone for that purpose.

It also makes the NSA's hacking less justifiable, because while the NSA might want to monitor decisions made by another government, it has absolutely no standing to be meddling in another nation's political affairs; they have no more right to do that than the Watergate burglars did.

Technically its the NSA's job to break a lot of foreign laws and do a lot of things they have no right to do. The key point to make is the diplomatic repercussions of tapping this particular phone in spite of it being a prime target's phone outweighs the benefits.

[Thanas]

Now that's just petty. WWII? Cold War?

Have you been living under a rock and missed the last 23 years of failed attempts by the EU to get some privacy rights or some civil rights chapter, attempts that most prominently failed due to British opposition? Need I remind you of the EU basic rights charter?

Ok, but quite a backtrack from "ever" to "the past 23 years" and "basic rights" to "a proposed part of the EU basic rights charter"

My apologies for not specifically mentioning the context of recent history and the EU, I thought anyone informed would get that given that this was a EU discussion but apparently not. But then again, given that you are convinced that the UK fought for privacy at some point, please point out whenever that specific instance of international diplomacy happened.

(and, worse, a part that apparently considered sufficiently unimportant to not have been included in the various international agreement the UK already joined).

Please educate yourself on the subject and then notice that it has only been proposed since the 1990s as part of building a stronger and more united Europe.

While I don't necessarily agree with the UK on this (nor am I sure exactly what their position is), I would point out that if relatively benign signals intelligence routes are blocked, invasive physical monitoring and searches is likely to replace it unless we first build a consensus on not trying to aggressively pre-empt terrorist acts.

This does not follow.

[Simon_Jester]

Technically its the NSA's job to break a lot of foreign laws and do a lot of things they have no right to do.

The trouble here is that we're giving the NSA an immensely broad and indiscriminate mandate to collect information that... completely ignores and disrespects the idea that other countries have any right to draw boundaries.

This kind of thing makes sense if we see Europe as the subsidiary client states of the American Empire- of course we'd spy on the German prime minister then, just as the Soviets no doubt tapped all the Polish government phone lines back in the days of the Warsaw Pact.

It does NOT make sense if we adhere to the Westphalian standard of what "nation-state" means, where there really is supposed to be a firewall of sorts between states' dealings with each other, and states' internal politics. Just as it's a major faux pas for a foreign leader to comment on an American election, there's a serious argument that we should not direct our own spy agencies to routinely meddle in the political affairs of neutral or friendly countries.