The Spy Story

While some news outlets have turned this inside-out and upside-down.....there's only a couple of facts to this week's German spy arrested for spying for the US story.

This guy in question....was supposedly a BND guy....the German version of the CIA.  There is some agreement apparently that he'd provided some services to the US CIA folks since 2012.....although no one says what.  Pay was figured into this, but you have to wonder how they paid him....cash?  And how much?

So, what the CIA asked him to provide which got him tripped up?  The Germans have an advisory committee from the Bundestag that is reviewing the whole NSA affair....aka....the story behind Snowden and his files.

The advisory committee....composed of Bundestag members....has a list of things that they want to review.  This BND guy got a copy and provided it to the CIA.  The Germans say the list was classified, which may be true....but just about any journalist in Germany could have approached several members of the committee and probably gotten half the list from them in a on-the-spot interview and with no hassle.

All of this lead to the Chancellor asking the US ambassador in Berlin to come over and have a chat.  It's not a pleasant meeting.....I can imagine.  Why would you spy on us, and for what gain is this supposed to achieve? The ambassador may not have even known what was on the CIA's agenda or that this one BND guy was working both sides of the street.

So all of this brings me to three questions: (1) How did they trip up this guy and figure this out (a German mole within the CIA)?  (2) Why would the CIA or US government care what the committee is investigating on US NSA gathering (unless the CIA doesn't know the full extent of what the NSA is doing and is prying into this to grasp the full story of their associates)?  (3) Finally, in the old days....there was tit-for-tat.....after the US arrested a Russian spy, the Russians would arrest two or three US spies.  Will the US now try hard to find a German spy in the US and arrest him....offering to trade for their mole?

For the other sixty-six US spies in Germany.....you might want to double-check your cover story and ensure that the neighbors aren't suspecting anything unusual, and plan for escape across the border into Switzerland.  Build up a stock of cigarettes (Marlboro brand is preferred by border crossing guards), wrap up your escape money into twenty-Euro clips and put twenty into your fake Bavarian hat, and only drink pure spring water as you transit the Alps (the beer will slow your escape).