Snowdon is a dummy

German media reports have implicated Germany's foreign intelligence agency in helping the NSA target European interests. The revelation has prompted politicians to call for an end to the collaboration.
[...]
The BND provided signals intelligence (SIGINT) for the NSA in more than 40,000 instances, according to the report. One of the targets was the Airbus Group, an aerospace and defense manufacturer.
The type of information the BND is allowed to collect is said to be strictly regulated by German law. The German spy agency is reported to have passed Internet IP address as well as mobile phone numbers to the NSA.
Members of a German parliamentary inquiry committee stopped a meeting on Thursday after the new information as published.
[...]
Von Notz [deputy parliamentary leaders of the Greens] added that he found it "hard to imagine" that the chancellor's office was unaware of the spy agencies' cooperation. The Chancellery is responsible for overseeing the work of German intelligence agencies.
Spiegel Online, however, reported that rather than inform the chancellor's office of the cooperation, a mid-level manager at the BND requested the NSA cease to make such requests.
[...]

The report brings to light a growing trend of mass data collection by intelligence services, a revelation made available when former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked information regarding the US agency's practices.

David Petraeus: Ex-CIA Director Given 2 Years Probation, $100,000 Fine for Leaking Classified Info

Petraeus pled guilty in March to one federal charge for sharing classified information with his biographer and lover, Paula Broadwell. He will avoid jail time as part of the plea deal.

this guy isn't a traitor?

Which is one of the reasons why Germany surrendered in 1945 instead of 1944.

The federal government isn't saying much about a probe into a new scandal involving Germany’s BND foreign intelligence agency. Now, the federal prosecutor’s office is planning to cooperate with the German NSA inquiry.
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It appears that parliament and the federal government "were misled by the BND about the extent and the goals of its cooperation with the NSA," said Martina Renner, a Left party member of the NSA inquiry. The Social Democrats are also critical. The BND appears to be acting unilaterally, said Yasmin Fahimi, general secretary of the SPD. "That's something we can't accept," she said, adding that Chancellor Angela Merkel's office seems to have completely lost control over the BND.

When asked whether the chancellery was fully informed about the BND's activities, Seibert said that there were "technical and organizational deficits" at the BND that must immediately be remedied. He had no comment on the future of the BND's President Gerhard Schindler.
What is known, is that as early as 2008, the BND became aware of several search requests from the Americans that were considered to be problematic. The chancellor's office was first informed about this in March. The BND is forbidden from turning information about German citizens that it discovers in the course of its foreign intelligence work over to its partners.

In March, Harald Fechner, a former BND department head in charge of technical information, told the NSA inquiry that the BND had made "mistakes" but that these were rare and were not the result of any political agenda.

Common investigation planned

Promises have now been made to make more documents available
Since the affair began in the wake of Edward Snowden's revelations, the federal prosecutor has had an ongoing inspection process with relation to cooperation of foreign intelligence services. The office now intends to "incorporate the results of the investigation committee within the framework of this inspection process," said a spokeswoman from the federal prosecutor's office. She denied that any such investigation was currently underway.

The chairman of the NSA committee, Patrick Sensburg of the Christian Democrats (CDU), promised to grant the federal prosecutor access to the files and meeting protocols. The committee also plans to hear testimony from witnesses familiar with the cooperation. But history has shown that the cooperation between the BND and the committee is not easy. Some files have been redacted to the point where they're no longer legible, others have been classified, or simply not delivered. The investigation into the latest revelations is also not likely to be any easier.

The German government's former human rights commissioner, Markus Löning (FDP) has taken a new approach. Together with a Berlin-based think tank called the "Stiftung Neue Verantwortung" (SNV), or New Responsibility Foundation, he recently presented a reform agenda for intelligence services. His premise is that the parliamentary and judicial supervision of the intelligence services is outdated and has to be brought in line with modern standards. In the past 15 years, the digitalization of communication has made better supervision possible, but the state has not availed itself of these opportunities to the extent that it could, he said.

US intelligence spent years spying on European targets from a secretive base. Now, it seems that German intelligence was aware of the espionage -- and did nothing to stop it.


It was obvious from its construction speed just how important the new site in Bavaria was to the Americans. Only four-and-a-half months after it was begun, the new, surveillance-proof building at the Mangfall Kaserne in Bad Aibling was finished. The structure had a metal exterior and no windows, which led to its derogatory nickname among members of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the German foreign intelligence agency: The "tin can."

The construction project was an expression of an especially close and trusting cooperation between the American National Security Agency (NSA) and the BND. Bad Aibling had formerly been a base for US espionage before it was officially turned over to the BND in 2004. But the "tin can" was built after the handover took place.
The heads of the two intelligence agencies had agreed to continue cooperating there in secret. Together, they established joint working groups, one for the acquisition of data, called Joint Sigint Activity, and one for the analysis of that data, known as the Joint Analysis Center.

But the Germans were apparently not supposed to know everything their partners in the "tin can" were doing. The Americans weren't just interested in terrorism; they also used their technical abilities to spy on companies and agencies in Western Europe. They didn't even shy away from pursuing German targets.

The Germans noticed -- in 2008, if not sooner. But nothing was done about it until 2013, when an analysis triggered by whistleblower Edward Snowden's leaks showed that the US was using the facility to spy on German and Western European targets.

On Thursday, though, SPIEGEL ONLINE revealed that the US spying was vastly more extensive than first thought. The revelations have been met with extreme concern in the German capital -- partly because they mark the return of a scandal that two successive Merkel administrations have never truly sought to clear up.

It remains unclear how much the BND knew, and to what extent German intelligence was involved, either intentionally or not. More crucially, it demonstrates the gap in trust that exists between two close allies.

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Patraeus was given a fair trial...

Frank Apisa wrote:

Patraeus was given a fair trial...

Petraeus avoided a trial with that deal.

Essentially...a plea deal is a part of the process.

I want more than anything to see Snowden get a fair trial.

Okay. So someone serving a long time for USA and with an until then admirable service can avoid a trial, others shouldn't get this chance?