Watching from Washington
Recently, scandals around the special services of Germany have not abated. They are mainly related to the activities of the US intelligence community units in the territory of their most reliable ally in NATO. In these scandals featured America's top e-spy, the National Security Agency (NSA), and the big dock run by the secret wars, the CIA. Two recent scandals are connected with the Federal Intelligence Service of Germany (BND), which is the foreign intelligence agency of Germany, and with the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (LWPC), whose functional duties include counterintelligence operations. Information about these confusions of the German special services appeared at the end of last month. In the first publication, the fictitious name of an operative employee of the BND, who worked for the CIA, appeared before the federal court. But the second of these punctures of the knights of the cloak and dagger of the Federal Republic of Germany is connected with the appearance in the German press of the original text of a cooperation agreement between the NSA and FISF.
AGENT MARCUS
20 August, Der Spiegel, one of Germany’s leading weekly magazines, reported that the German government accused the BND 32-year-old foreign intelligence officer who had been working in the Regions and External Relations section of this special service last summer, spying for the United States and Russia. Officially, his real name and surname are not called. In the statements of employees of special services, representatives of legal bodies and in the press, this double agent appears simply as Markus R.
Almost immediately after 13 was arrested in July 2014, in an interview with the German television channel ZDF, which mainly dealt with the topic of spy scandal, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Berlin would most likely not succeed in forcing Washington to abandon reconnaissance actions in West Germany. “In my opinion, it’s not at all easy to convince Americans that they now radically change the work of the special services,” said the chancellor. "In this regard, we must make it clear where we have different points of view," Merkel added and expressed the hope that the situation would change. "I can not predict this, of course, I hope something will change," - said the head of the Germans. According to her, espionage among the allies does not indicate "partnership cooperation".
The Prosecutor General of the Federal Republic of Germany charged the traitor with high treason. According to German law, depending on the extent of the damage caused to the national security of Germany, under this article the person involved may be sentenced to a long term, up to life imprisonment. Investigators obtained the necessary evidence about the transfer of closed documents of this service by the US and allegedly to Russia by the former BND officer. The prosecutor's office of the city of Karlsruhe, located in Baden-Württemberg, near the River Rhine, near the French-German border, referred the case to a land court in Munich.
During the investigation, it was established that the first contact of Marcus with the CIA officers, most likely, occurred several years ago. According to the German press, the US foreign intelligence coordinated its activities not from the Berlin US embassy, as previously thought, but from the US embassy in Vienna. This was done in order to minimize the possible risk of failure of the agent. Although the internal security service of BND could hardly be suspected of spying an unobtrusive employee with physical disabilities and a speech defect. In addition, according to some German publications, the spy was part of the immediate entourage of the head of this special service, Gerhard Schindler, which, to a certain extent, removed from him possible suspicions of betrayal. During the investigation, Markus called his immediate supervisor, an operative of the CIA named Craig.
During his time at the CIA, which lasted two years, the agent handed over to the US espionage agency 218 BND documents with various secrets. By the nature of his service, he had access to numerous closed documents of German intelligence, including lists of BND agents seconded to German embassies in various states, as well as agents who work in countries where Bundeswehr peacekeepers serve, that is, in Afghanistan, Mali, Sudan and Lebanon . German counterintelligence officers managed to crack the protection of Marcus's laptop. This computer, which had a special program that blocked access by unauthorized persons to its contents and had a code that allowed the agent to come into direct contact with the curator on a weekly basis, opening a special application with a “weather forecast” icon, was supplied by American instructors. Investigators have found that real names are stored on the agent’s hard drive, as well as the operational aliases of 3500 BND agents. According to the German press, this represents more than half the number of the entire agent network of this service. Whether the CIA agent handed over these lists to his owners is not reported, but it’s known for certain that he gave the Americans a protocol of a telephone conversation between the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan who held the post of 2013 and gave the Americans the secret concept of countering espionage. and also a number of internal official documents of the foreign intelligence of Germany. A flash card with all these documents, sent by the agent to Langley, was discovered during the investigation in the apartment of the suspect.
Counterintelligence of the Federal Republic of Germany was able to detect the "mole" last summer. Then, allegedly, Marcus sent the General Consul of the Russian Federation in Munich three BND documents, which he had previously sent to the Americans. According to investigators, Markus could receive up to 75 thousand euros for his information.
In the summer of 2014, the case of Marcus R. was made public. This case, after almost a year of public debate about the scandal with the NSA tapping of the top leadership of Germany, caused a wide resonance among German citizens. It has become another indisputable proof that the United States is monitoring not only high-ranking German officials, but also BND, and directly in Germany.
The extent of the damage caused by the traitor to his department, official representatives of the BND does not comment. But almost immediately after his detention, the CIA resident in Berlin, Ralph Goff, was expelled from Germany. There was no such harsh reaction even when it turned out that the Americans were listening to the Federal Chancellor’s mobile phone. However, experts do not expect a change in Berlin’s policy regarding Washington even after such a scandalous publication.
German journalist Christoph Herstel, who has connections in German intelligence, believes that information leaked to the press about the investigation of this case is not accidental. It is necessary in order to carry out the long-planned staff rotation in the BND. “In our intelligence activities, we will probably cooperate even more closely with Washington and the CIA than it has been until now. Therefore, I believe that we are taking a step back to the old bad intelligence days immediately after World War II, when the BND was just a branch of the American intelligence service, ”said Herstel.
The exposed spy does not consider himself a traitor and insists that he has always been faithful to his country. Whether he had in mind that the transfer of such secret information to the Americans is a common practice in the German special services, it is not yet clear. Although the meticulous journalists again found a secret document, this time compromising the FVZK and indicating that this practice really exists.
NSA - “IN LAW” IN GERMAN “ZONE”
August this year's 28, another German weekly, Die Zeit, published the original text of a secret cooperation agreement between the NSA, the BND and the FMIS under the rather long title “Terms of Cooperation between the Radio Electronic BND and the USFG of the Federal Republic of Germany and the US National Network Analysis Program XKeyscore. In the text of the agreement, this agreement is briefly referred to as the Terms of Cooperation (TOR). The contract at the end of April 2013 was signed by the heads of the radio electronic intelligence departments of the NSA and the BND and the director of the FVZK.
The third section of this document, which defines the rights and obligations of the parties, states that the NSA transfers the XKeyscore program and the corresponding equipment to the BND, which, in turn, will make it available to the FFMC. NSA specialists will provide all necessary assistance to the staff of these special services in solving complex problems associated with the use of this program and maintenance of computing facilities. BND will be directly involved in the installation of equipment for this program, carry out its maintenance and train specialists of the FVZK.
This section also indicates that this software will be used in strict accordance with the laws of Germany. At the same time, it is specifically stipulated that it should not be used to monitor certain categories of individuals. These include Americans, foreigners legally residing in the United States, informal social groups and associations, the majority of which are American citizens or persons holding a residence permit in America. In addition, with the help of the XKeyscore program, it is prohibited to monitor private jets and the courts of American citizens. By signing this agreement, German counterintelligence refused the right to carry out surveillance of Americans and certain categories of foreigners with overseas registration on its territory.
It says that all information received through this program, related to the areas of the NSA's activities, should be “transmitted to this department“ to the maximum extent possible ”.
"MAGIC KEY" NSA
For the first time two years ago, the British Guardian newspaper published a number of documents received from the former CIA and NSA officer Edward Snowden. In early June, 2013, he gave the Guardian and Washington Post newspapers the secret information of the NSA regarding total electronic surveillance of US intelligence agencies for citizens of many states. Snowden's information also revealed the mechanism for controlling the NSA of Internet users. So there was more data about the program XKeyscore.
This program for collecting, storing and analyzing data is designed to track foreign nationals in various countries of the world. Almost all Internet users of the planet fall under its action. XKeyscore allows you to keep records of "almost any human activity online." With this program you can track huge amounts of metadata and mobile conversations.
Tracking of the XKeyscore program is carried out with the help of 750 servers located in the USA, in the territories of the countries-allies of America, as well as in US embassies and consulates in various countries of the world. All of this equipment operates in 150 countries. Currently, XKeyscore is shared by the NSA, the Australian Radio Engineering Directorate and the New Zealand Government Communications Security Service. The main work centers that enable this program to operate are located in Australia and New Zealand. Access to the data obtained through this program, also have the special services of the UK and Canada.
XKeyscore can track user activity in real time, and also shows anomalies in Internet traffic. The program serves to identify targets and their subsequent maintenance. Details such as an atypical situation, such as the presence of a native speaker of a language in a foreign territory, the use of encrypted mail and other factors, can draw attention of analysts.
With this program, you can conduct large-scale electronic round-the-clock surveillance of anyone, including American citizens, without any authority or warrant to carry out such activities. To search for information, the specialist simply enters the e-mail address and data of the time of transmission of the correspondence of interest into the XKeyscore program. After that letters are selected that interest the originator of the request. The specialist can search for the necessary information by name, phone number, IP address, keywords and the language in which data is exchanged on the Internet. An NSA expert can monitor all activities of any particular person on a wide range of information, including using search engines and visiting websites. XKeyscore program allows you to find the IP address of each user who visits a website. In addition, it allows you to read the contents of chats and private correspondence on Facebook.
The amount of information available to XKeyscore for analysis is extremely large. According to one of the reports from the NSA, 2007 has billions of informational contacts in it since 850, of which 150 billion belongs to the Internet. Every day 1 – 2 billion records are added to the database.
In connection with the revelations of Snowden, there were also reports in the press that XKeyscore servers could be located in Moscow and Beijing. Some representatives of the Russian special services assert that if the corresponding equipment is located in Moscow, then most likely it is located in the US embassy, equipped with the latest technical means for conducting reconnaissance. However, some Russian experts do not believe in finding XKeyscore in our capital. They believe that with such a large amount of traffic, the servers on which this program is installed simply cannot go unnoticed, and it is absolutely impossible to hide them in data centers, such as the Google search engine, located in Moscow or St. Petersburg.
The American special services have long frankly ignored all American laws and norms of international law. They want to create an ordinary camp zone from the whole world, where, like behind barbed wire, everyone will have to live “according to the concepts”, and the “looking” - the NSA - with the help of the XKeyscore program will control the population not only of America, but also of the world . In 2008, the Guardian newspaper, in whose hands the NSA's data on the XKeyscore presentation, fell into the hands of the employees, published a map of the servers with this program in different parts of the world. Later, the existence of this program was confirmed by Snowden, who provided journalists with a top-secret document called “The Unofficial XKeyscore User Guide”, concocted by America’s main radio electronic intelligence officer. From these materials it is clear that the American "authority" of the NSA today controls the inhabitants of most of the countries of the world. And now he is crowned with German.
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