US spy chief Clapper defends Prism and phone surveillance

[Magda Hassan]

Meanwhile, the Germans are calling the latest revelation about GCHQ spying "catastrophic".

Is this hot air?

Sour grapes because this intelligence was not being shared with Gehlen Org, sorry, German intelligence?

Or genuine fury which will lead to retaliatory measures?

GCHQ monitoring described as a 'catastrophe' by German politicians

Federal ministers demand clarification from UK government on extent of spying conducted on German citizens

Conal Urquhart and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 22 June 2013 18.03 BST

The German justice minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, said the accusations 'sound like a Hollywood nightmare'. Photograph: Ole Spata/Corbis

Britain's European partners have described reports of Britain's surveillance of international electronic communications as a catastrophe and will seek urgent clarification from London.

Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, the German justice minister said the report in the Guardian read like the plot of a film.

"If these accusations are correct, this would be a catastrophe," Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said in a statement to Reuters. "The accusations against Great Britain sound like a Hollywood nightmare. The European institutions should seek straight away to clarify the situation."

Britain's Tempora project enables it to intercept and store immense volumes of British and international communications for 30 days.

With a few months to go before federal elections, the minister's comments are likely to please Germans who are highly sensitive to government monitoring, having lived through the Stasi secret police in communist East Germany and with lingering memories of the Gestapo under the Nazis.

"The accusations make it sound as if George Orwell's surveillance society has become reality in Great Britain," said Thomas Oppermann, floor leader of the opposition Social Democrats.

Orwell's novel 1984 envisioned a futuristic security state where "Big Brother" spied on the intimate details of people's lives.

"This is unbearable," Oppermann told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. "The government must clarify these accusations and act against a total surveillance of German citizens."

German spy service plans 'more online surveillance'

Jun 16, 2013

Germany's foreign intelligence service plans a major expansion of Internet surveillance despite deep unease over revelations of US online spying, Der Spiegel news weekly reported on Sunday.

Spiegel said that the BND planned a 100 million euro ($130 million) programme over the next five years to expand web monitoring with up to 100 new staff members on a "technical reconnaissance" team.
The report came ahead of a state visit to Berlin by US President Barack Obama during which the German government has pledged to take up the controversy over the US phone and Internet surveillance programmes.
Spiegel said the BND aimed to monitor international data traffic "as closely as possible", noting that it currently kept tabs on about five percent of emails, Internet calls and online chats while German law allowed up to 20 percent.
Unlike the US National Security Agency (NSA), Germany's BND is not allowed to store the data but must filter it immediately.
"Of course our intelligence services must have an Internet presence," Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich told Der Spiegel, without confirming the details of the report.
The state must ensure "that we balance the loss of control over communication by criminals with new legal and technological means," he added.
Under the so-called PRISM programme that was exposed this month, the NSA can issue directives to Internet firms such as Google and Facebook to gain access to emails, online chats, pictures, files and videos uploaded by foreign users.
Germany, where sensitivity over government surveillance is particularly heightened due to widespread spying on citizens by communist East Germany's despised Stasi, said last week it was sending a list of questions to the Obama administration about the programme.
The European Union has also expressed disquiet over the scheme and warned of "grave adverse consequences" to the rights of European citizens.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-06-german-spy-...e.html#jCp