Cererea vine dupa ce 2 cazuri suspecte de spionaj pentru SUA au fost identificate in randul unor inalti oficiali guvernamentali germani si dupa ce Snowden a dezvaluit ca telefonul Angelei Merkel a fost ascultat de americani

Dumineca , intr-un interviu, transmis de televiziunea publica germana ZDF, Angela Merkel a spus: "Cred ca nu este asa usor sa-i convingem pe americani … sa-si schimbe complet modul in care lucreaza serviciile lor de informatii."

Primul German care a fost arestat ca spion al americanilor lucra pentru agentia de securitate "Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND)", si este suspectat a fi un agent dublu care lucra si pentru CIA. Miercuri dimineata, o a doua persoana care lucra ministerul apararii german a fost arestata de-asemenea. In urma acestor dezvaluiri si arestari, Sefului CIA in Germania, i s-a cerut sa paraseasca tara.

In ceea ce priveste arestarile germanilor care lucrau pentru americani, Merkel a spus "Nu este vorba cat de suparata am fost. Pentru mine e un semn ca noi avem conceptii fundamental diferite in ceea ce priveste modul in care trebuie sa opereze serviciile de informatii.

"Eu nu pot spune in avans daca [masurile care le-am luat] vor avea un efect, dar bineintelse sper ca ceva sa se-ntample. Insa important este sa aratam cum vedem noi lucrurile … si sa spunem ca nu exsita o cooperare reala intre parteneri cand astfel de lucruri se-ntampla."

Dumineca, Merkel a declarat ca spionarea aliatilor erodeaza increderea intre acestia. "Nu mai traim in timpul Razboiului Rece si suntem expusi la alte amenintari acum” a spus ea. “Ar trebui sa ne concentram pe ceea ce este esential.”

Intrebata daca se asteapta ca SUA sa-si schimba optiunea de a spiona Germania, Merkel a spus: "Eu nu pot prezice acest lucru, dar cu siguranta sper ca sa-si schimbe atitudinea."

Stirea din The Guardian

The German government has asked the top US intelligence official in Berlin to leave the country, according to a politician from Angela Merkel's party.

The move comes in response to two reported cases of suspected US spying in Germany and the year-long spat over reported NSA spying in Germany.

Clemens Binniger, who chairs the parliamentary committee that oversees the intelligence services, told reporters on Thursday that "the government has asked the representative of the US intelligence agencies in Germany to leave the country as a reaction to the ongoing failure to help resolve the various allegations, starting with the NSA and up to the latest incidents."

The move comes in response to two reported cases of suspected US spying in Germany and the year-long spat over reported NSA spying in Germany, including claims that Merkel's phone was tapped.

Merkel's spokesperson, Steffen Seibert, confirmed the decision in an official statement, which said: "The government takes these activities very seriously. It is essential and in the interest of the security of its citizens and its forces abroad for Germany to collaborate closely and trustfully with its western partners, especially the US.

"But mutual trust and openness is necessary. The government is still prepared to do so and expects the same of its closest partners."

Burkhard Lischka of the Social Democratic party said: "For over a year we have been asking questions and failed to get a response." As a result, Lischka said, "cracks" had started to appear in Germany's relationship with America.

Andre Hahn, a Left party member on the supervisory panel, said that the recent string of spying cases had shown that "we wouldn't put anything past Russia and China. But there's blind trust in the US. This trust has now taken a knock."

U.S. Offered Berlin 'Five Eyes' Pact. Merkel Was Done With It

Bloomberg - By Patrick Donahue and John Walcott Jul 12, 2014 6:39 PM GMT+0300

U.S. Ambassador John Emerson made his way to the Foreign Ministry in Berlin armed with a plan to head off the worst diplomatic clash of Angela Merkel’s chancellorship.

Emerson came to the July 9 meeting with an offer authorized in Washington: provide Germany a U.S. intelligence-sharing agreement resembling one available only to four other nations. The goal was to assuage Merkel and prevent the expulsion of the Central Intelligence Agency’s chief of station in Berlin.

It wasn’t enough.

The same morning, across the boundary once marked by the Berlin Wall, Merkel convened her top ministers following the 9:30 a.m. Cabinet meeting on the sixth floor of the Chancellery and resolved to ask the U.S. intelligence chief to leave German soil.

Merkel, who ultimately determined the government’s course, had to act. Public and political pressure after more than a year of accusations of American espionage overreach, stoked by indignation at the lack of a sufficient response from Washington, had left the German government with no alternative.

“We don’t live in the Cold War anymore, where everybody probably mistrusted everybody else,” Merkel, who has previously reserved her Cold War-mentality accusations for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said in an interview with German broadcaster ZDF today.

The spying scandal has blown open a rift between the U.S. and Germany, a nation once under American tutelage in the decades after World War II. The latest allegations, involving U.S. double agents, rekindled anger over the disclosure last year that Merkel’s mobile phone had been hacked by the U.S.

“The notion that you always have to ask yourself in close cooperation whether the one sitting across from you could be working for the others -– that’s not a basis for trust,” Merkel told ZDF. “So we obviously have different perceptions and we have to discuss that intensively.”

Merkel also signaled displeasure with U.S. spying at a news conference in Berlin on July 10. Within an hour, her office issued a statement saying that the two new investigations into U.S. cloak-and-dagger methods, on top of “questions over the past months” following leaks on National Security Agency activity, forced the government to take action.

Invited to Leave

At that point, the U.S. intelligence officer was invited to leave the country rather than suffer the diplomatic ignominy of being declared “persona non grata” and expelled under the Vienna Convention. Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said yesterday that the government expected the unidentified official to leave the country “soon.”

The eviction was “a necessary step and a measured response to the breach of trust that took place,” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters yesterday. He’ll meet U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Vienna tomorrow to discuss the matter on the sidelines of talks on Iran’s nuclear program.

The onus is on the U.S. to suggest solutions, and German officials are waiting to hear what Kerry will propose, according to a German diplomat who asked not to be identified discussing the conflict.

The revelations at once disrupt the U.S. security relationship with a core European ally and expose German anxiety over the balance to strike between privacy issues and combating terrorism. Hamburg was home to three of the Sept. 11, 2001, suicide pilots.

CIA Chief

In addition to Ambassador Emerson’s efforts, CIA Director John Brennan contacted Germany’s intelligence chief this week, before the CIA official was asked to leave, and offered to visit Berlin to help resolve the dispute, according to the German diplomat.

Brennan’s offer was perceived in Berlin as too little, too late, and Germany hasn’t responded to it, the diplomat said. The government doesn’t want a visit limited to symbolism and private consultations with intelligence officials, the diplomat said, and would want Brennan to bring concrete proposals and speak with lawmakers and the media.

Emerson, who was president of an investment-management firm after serving in President Bill Clinton’s administration, made a previous visit to the Foreign Ministry -- on the Fourth of July -- at the request of the German government.

Ambassador’s Offer

Deputy Foreign Minister Stephan Steinlein sought a “swift clarification” over a Federal Prosecutor investigation into an employee of Germany’s foreign-intelligence service, or BND, suspected of passing information to American agents.

The 31-year-old mid-level employee had spirited away 218 top-secret files, most of which were printed out and scanned and contained in five cardboard file folders, and handed them over to a contact over a two-year period, German lawmakers overseeing intelligence have said.

Emerson, who requested the July 9 meeting, delivered an offer from President Barack Obama’s administration for an arrangement resembling the Cold War intelligence-sharing agreement among the countries known as the “Five Eyes” -- the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand, according to a U.S. official who asked not to be identified discussing the private negotiations.

Intelligence Sharing

The arrangement, initiated in 1946 between the U.S. and U.K., calls for the U.S. and the other English-speaking countries to share most of the electronic intercepts and some of the other intelligence they collect, with the understanding that they will limit their spying on one another.

“We are not currently looking to alter the Five Eyes structure,” said Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the White House’s National Security Council, in an e-mailed statement. “But we remain open to discussions with our close allies and partners, including Germany, about how we can better coordinate our intelligence efforts.”

Postwar Germany has had a more modest intelligence establishment than the U.S. or U.K., focused largely on the former East Germany and Soviet Union and on terrorist groups. German officials balked at expanding their collection and sharing under such an unwritten arrangement, according to the U.S. official.

The allegations of snooping have particular resonance for Merkel, who lived for 35 years in communist East Germany and who, as the daughter of a Protestant pastor, endured special scrutiny from the state-security service, the Stasi.

Big ’If’

While German-U.S. relations dipped during the 2003 Iraq war when Merkel’s predecessor, Gerhard Schroeder, refused to join President George W. Bush’s coalition against Saddam Hussein, ties improved under Merkel. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Obama in 2011.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest declined to comment on the details of the allegations, telling reporters at the beginning of the week that accusations over spying were subject to a “a big ‘if’.”

“We highly value the close working relationship we have with the Germans on a wide range of issues,” Earnest said, “but particularly on security and intelligence matters.”

U.S. lawmakers, including some frequently critical of Obama, have been similarly reticent.

Lawmakers’ Concerns

“I don’t know how much the administration could have done to defuse this,” Representative Ed Royce, the California Republican who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said yesterday at a breakfast with reporters hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. “Given the circumstances, the administration is attempting at this time to deal with the German government, and I’m hopeful that they’re successful.”

Senator Mark Udall, a Colorado Democrat and Intelligence Committee member, has told reporters that he was eager to learn more about the situation at a classified briefing for the panel members next week.

“I am concerned that we’re sending the wrong message to a key ally,” Udall said.

Before the current tensions, the U.S. and Germany had a history of extensive intelligence cooperation. For many years, much of U.S. electronic spying on Iran was conducted out of a CIA station in Frankfurt known as Tefran, according to a former U.S. intelligence official who described the cooperation on condition of anonymity.

Review Agreements

A number of people in the U.S. government say that, more than two decades after the Cold War ended, it’s time to consider agreements with more countries to help track terrorists, weapons proliferation and espionage, according to U.S. officials who asked not to be identified.

They said the conflict with Germany also has underscored concern that intelligence agencies lack any good risk-assessment model to judge the benefits of operations against friendly powers against the potential risks.

“This is so stupid,” German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, Germany’s longest-serving lawmaker, said July 9, reflecting frustration and amazement about the turn of events in U.S.-German relations.

Schaeuble, who helped negotiate German reunification 25 years ago this year, said, “It makes you want to cry.”

Merkel doubts whether US will stop spying on Germany

• Chancellor: 'We are not living in the Cold War anymore''

• German leader refuses to predict score of World Cup final

Martin Pengelly and agencies

theguardian.com, Saturday 12 July 2014 19.32 BST

Amid a continuing scandal over the arrests of two German government workers for allegedly spying for the US, the country's chancellor, Angela Merkel, said on Saturday she was doubtful the US would ever stop spying on Germany.

On Friday, a senior German official told the Guardian the country expected “something in public” from the US about spying activities regarding its ally, as the German people were “so outraged” on the issue.

Earlier in the day, White House spokesman Josh Earnest seemed to play down the discussions of such issues in public when he said: “Countries with sophisticated intelligence agencies like the United States and Germany understand what intelligence activities and relationships entail.

“When concerns arise, there are benefits to resolving those differences in private secure channels.”

On Saturday, in an interview with public broadcaster ZDF, Merkel said: "I think it's not that easy to convince the Americans … to completely change the way their intelligence services work."

The first German to be arrested worked for the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) intelligence agency, and is suspected of being a double agent for the CIA. On Wednesday morning, an official from the defence ministry was arrested. The top representative of US secret services in Germany, the CIA station chief, was subsequently asked to leave the country.

Of her feelings regarding the arrests, Merkel said: "It is not about how angry I was. For me it is a sign that we have fundamentally different conceptions of the work of the intelligence services.

"I can't say in advance if [the measures we took] will have an effect, of course I hope something will change. But the important thing is to show how we view things … and it is not a co-operative partnership when such things take place."

Tensions between the US and Germany, a close ally, over spying allegations first surfaced last October, with the revelation among leaks provided to the Guardian and other media outlets by the former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden that the US had monitored Merkel's mobile phone.

On Saturday, Merkel said spying on allies eroded trust. "We are not living in the Cold War anymore and are exposed to different threats,” she said. “We should concentrate on what is essential.”

Asked if she expected the US to change its approach to spying on Germany, Merkel said: "I can't predict that, but I certainly hope it will change."

Merkel was also asked if Germany could win Sunday's World Cup final in Rio de Janeiro, in which Joachim Löw's team, who beat their Brazilian hosts 7-1 in an extraordinary semi-final, will face Argentina.

Merkel said: "It certainly won't be easy tomorrow; after the 7-1, everybody thinks 'It's almost done'. That's why we all need to cross our fingers again."

Merkel, who will attend the game, declined to predict a score.

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