The State Department went into damage control mode again Thursday after the German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office summoned the U.S. ambassador in Berlin to explain fresh allegations that U.S. spies have eavesdropped not only on her phone but also those of dozens of other high-level German government officials.
The allegations, which surfaced this week on the website of WikiLeaks, prompted a cautious response from State Department spokesman John Kirby, who said the U.S. and Germany have already addressed past spying allegations and are “going to continue to work past this.”
“We continue to enjoy a long and very productive friendship with Germany based on shared values and a history of cooperating to advance our interests around the globe,” Mr. Kirby told reporters. “Nothing’s going to change about that.”
The State Department spokesman declined to comment on the validity of WikiLeaks’ revelation.
The website, a conduit for anonymously leaked material, published a list of 69 phone and fax numbers Wednesday that it claimed belonged to senior officials at Germany’s economy and finance ministries, among others, allegedly monitored by the U.S. National Security Agency. It was not clear when the spying may have taken place.
Reports two years ago that Mrs. Merkel’s phone had been targeted by the NSA prompted diplomatic friction between Berlin and Washington, but German prosecutors recently dropped their probe into the case citing lack of concrete evidence.
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WikiLeaks’ revelation is likely to rekindle concerns in Germany, where issues of personal privacy and intrusive state spying are politically potent, that the NSA was engaged in widespread surveillance of its close ally.
While it wasn’t immediately possible to confirm the accuracy of the revelation, the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, which said it had been given access to documents received by WikiLeaks, reported that the list of phone numbers appeared to be from a period between 2010 and 2012, and at least some of the numbers are still in use.
The Merkel government is evidently taking the report seriously.
Mr. Kirby confirmed on Thursday afternoon that U.S. Ambassador John Emerson had met earlier in the day with Mrs. Merkel’s chief of staff, Peter Altmaier.
In its own statement, the Merkel government said Thursday that Mr. Altmaier “made clear that abiding by German law is indispensable” and that Berlin would pursue any allegations of snooping, according to Mrs. Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert. Mr. Seibert added that cooperation between German and American intelligence services “is burdened by such repeated incidents.”
The State Department spokesman also declined to comment on WikiLeaks’ claim, although he seemed to leave open the possibility that U.S. officials at some point during recent years may have spied on a significant number of German officials.
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“We’re not going to comment on specific intelligence allegations or the voracity of leaked documents,” Mr. Kirby said. “But as we’ve also said, we do not conduct foreign intelligence surveillance activities unless there’s a specific and validated national security purpose. That applies to ordinary citizens and world leaders alike.”
• Guy Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.
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