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Chancellor Merkel called President Obama on Wednesday demanding answers after reports emerged that the US may have been monitoring her phone
(from Agence France-Presse) BERLIN – Germany summoned the U.S. ambassador Thursday amid outrage over suspicions that Washington tapped Chancellor Angela Merkel‘s mobile phone, as she faced allegations she had naively played down the NSA spying scandal.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle [met] U.S. envoy [ambassador] John B. Emerson late Thursday, a foreign ministry spokeswoman told AFP, adding: “The position of the German government will be presented clearly.”
The ministry could not confirm that the step was unprecedented in U.S.-German post-war relations but it was seen as a highly unusual move between the close allies.
Merkel was to discuss strategies for confronting covert U.S. surveillance in Europe with French President Francois Hollande on Thursday on the margins of an EU summit, a French diplomatic source said.
The German leader called President Obama Wednesday demanding answers after learning the National Security Agency may have monitored her phone, warning this would be “breach of trust” between international partners.
A White House spokesman said it is not now listening in on Merkel, but did not deny the possibility her communications may have been intercepted in the past.
The allegations sparked anger in Germany and Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a statement that she had “made clear that she unequivocally disapproves of such practices, should they be confirmed, and regards them as completely unacceptable.”
Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel, citing government sources, reported that the alleged tapping targeted not Merkel’s official mobile phone but a separate device she uses for conducting business for her Christian Democratic Union party.
German and U.S. intelligence agencies cooperate closely on counter-terrorism efforts and other matters related to espionage.
But the latest revelations threaten the personal trust and close cooperation between Obama and Merkel, which saw the U.S. leader pay a long-awaited visit to Berlin earlier this year.
As the NSA scandal raged in Germany during the campaign for the September election, Obama indicated in July that his personal ties with Merkel meant he had no need to spy on her.
“If I want to know what Chancellor Merkel is thinking, I will call Chancellor Merkel,” he said then.
Merkel grew up in communist East Germany, where state spying on citizens was rampant. Germans also carry the trauma of mass abuses by the security services under the Nazi regime.
News of the eavesdropping suspicion and the German protest came first from Spiegel Online, whose parent magazine reported many of the U.S. surveillance claims made by fugitive intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.
The conservative daily Die Welt called the alleged snooping a “diplomatic bomb” and “a punch in the face of German security agencies,” while a Sueddeutsche Zeitung headline labelled it “the worst imaginable insult.”
“If it is true what we are hearing then it would be very bad indeed,” Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere told ARD public television. “The Americans are and remain our best friends but that is not on,” he said. “I have assumed for years that my mobile phone is being tapped but I didn’t suspect the Americans.”
However the opposition Greens party attacked Merkel’s government itself for having declared the NSA spying scandal — centered on charges of surveillance of millions of citizens’ phone calls, emails, chats and other communications — effectively over several months ago.
“It’s scandalous that the government appeased and obscured throughout the entire NSA affair, but that now, when it comes to confidentiality of communications of the chancellor, Merkel voices personal indignation in a phone call to the American president,” Greens lawmaker Konstantin von Notz told the Handelsblatt daily’s website.
“It apparently had to come to this, the chancellor’s mobile phone becoming a target,” Die Welt said. “Now we’re seeing the protest that was missing when the population was being spied on.”
Merkel had offered assurances during her campaign for a third term — which she handily won last month — that she had taken up the most serious allegations of mass NSA spying with Washington and was confident she would receive a thorough answer.
The Social Democrats, her chief rivals, were unable to harness public anger over the snooping reports in the election and are now in negotiations to become Merkel’s junior partner in her next administration.
Reprinted here for educational purposes only. May not be reproduced on other websites without permission from Agence France-Presse. Visit the website at afp.com.
Questions
1. Name the presidents of Germany and France.
2. Why did the German Foreign Minister summon the U.S. ambassador to a meeting this week?
3. What type of relationship does the U.S. government have with Germany?
4. How did the Obama administration respond to the German accusations?
5. USA Today reports:
Analysts said that while the allegations could do ongoing political damage to the Obama administration and its relationship with the EU, spying is a fact of modern life among allies. “I’m somewhat surprised that people are surprised nations spy upon each other,” said Charles King Mallory IV, former head of the Aspen Institute in Germany. “This happens.”
Moreover, Mallory said the German government had long been aware of U.S. attempts to access Merkel’s communications, adding that a former chief of German intelligence told him about the spying a year and a half ago. “We were discussing the NSA, and he said, ‘I happen to know for a fact that they’re capable of penetrating the communications of our chancellery,'” said Mallory. “So, I think there is a certain amount of political Kabuki that is going on.”
What does the AFP reporter give as the most likely reason for the public “summoning” of the U.S. ambassador?
6. Ask a grandparent if he/she is surprised that the U.S. ambassadors–first to France, then to Germany–were “summoned” to a meeting, rather than the representatives from these allies “requesting a meeting” and to explain why or why not.
7. What lesson should we (as well as government officials around the world) learn from the reports of President Merkel’s cell phone being tapped (as well as those of French citizens and many others)?
CHALLENGE QUESTION: Before all of the technology available to us today, how was it possible to listen in on phone conversations in the early days of telephone?
Daily “Answers” emails are provided for Daily News Articles, Tuesday’s World Events and Friday’s News Quiz.
