Targeting Turkey: How Germany Spies on Its Friends

Germany has been a leading critic of the widespread US National Security Agency surveillance program, yet the country has also done its share of spying on friends and allies, including former and current secretaries of state Hillary Clinton and John Kerry as well as Turkey. The intended target for the US officials was Islamic terrorists, but “intelligence sources now say that US office holders have also fallen into the BND's crosshairs while making satellite telephone calls from airplanes,” explains a team of reporters for Spiegel Online. Clinton was caught during a briefing from former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on the Syria crisis, and the transcript and other so-called “bycatch” should have been immediately destroyed. Instead, a German agent later caught spying for the US held on to the transcript. German politicians defend the program. US critics call the Germans hypocrites, and Turkish officials are wary about trusting its NATO partners in sensitive operations. – YaleGlobal