New Snowden Revelations on NSA Spying in Germany

Is it possible that the German government really knew nothing about all of these NSA activities within Germany? Are they really -- as they claimed in August 2013 in response to a query from the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) -- "unaware of the surveillance stations used by the NSA in Germany"?

That is difficult to believe, especially given that the NSA has been active in Germany for decades and has cooperated closely with the country's foreign intelligence agency, the BND, which is overseen by the Chancellery. A top-secret NSA paper from January 2013 notes: "NSA established a relationship with its SIGINT counterpart in Germany, the BND-TA, in 1962, which includes extensive analytical, operational, and technical exchanges."

When the cooperation with its junior partner from West Germany began, the NSA was just 10 years old and maintained stations in Augsburg and West Berlin in addition to its European headquarters in Stuttgart-Vaihingen.

American intelligence agencies, like those of the three other World War II victors, immediately began to monitor Germans within their zones of occupation, as confirmed by internal guidelines relating to the evaluation of reports stemming from the years 1946 to 1967.

In 1955, the British and French reduced their surveillance of Germans and focused on operations further to the east. The Americans, however, did not and continued to monitor telephone and other transmissions both within Germany and between the country and others in Western Europe. By the mid 1950s, US spies may have been listening in on some 5 million telephone conversations per year in Germany.

The easternmost NSA surveillance post in Europe during the Cold War was the Field Station Berlin, located on Teufelsberg (Devil's Mountain) in West Berlin. The hill is made from the rubble left over from World War II -- and the agents operating from its top were apparently extremely competent. They won the coveted Travis Trophy, awarded by the NSA each year to the best surveillance post worldwide, four times.

'A Perpetual State of Domination'

Josef Foschepoth, a German historian, refers to German-American relations as "a perpetual state of domination." He speaks of a "common law developed over the course of 60 years" allowing for uncontrolled US surveillance in Germany. Just how comprehensive this surveillance was -- and remains -- can be seen from the so-called SIGAD lists, which are part of the Snowden archive. SIGAD stands for "Signal Intelligence Activity Designator" and refers to intelligence sources that intercept radio or telephone signals. Every US monitoring facility carries a code name made up of letters and numbers.

Documents indicate that the Americans often opened new SIGAD facilities and closed old ones over the decades, with a total of around 150 prior to the fall of the Wall. The technology used for such surveillance operations has advanced tremendously since then, with modern fiber-optic cables largely supplanting satellite communications. Data has become digital, making the capture of large quantities of it far easier.

The Snowden documents include a 2007 list that goes all the way back to 1917 and includes the names of many former and still active US military installations as well as other US facilities that are indicated as sites of data collection. It notes that a number of the codes listed are no longer in operation, and a deactivation date is included for at least a dozen. In other instances, the document states that the closing date is either unknown or that the SIGADs in question are still in operation. These latter codes include sites in Frankfurt, Berlin, Bad Aibling and Stuttgart -- all places still known to have an active NSA presence.

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New Snowden Revelations on NSA Spying in Germany