Back in the middle of the Obama era of the Presidency, it was kinda hinted across various news groups in Germany that the US spied on Chancellor Merkel and her cellphone. The bulk of this story? Fairly limited, until this past weekend. I'll reference a good bit of the story over to a Focus news item discussed.
So what journalists laid out is that during this period of about eight years ago....the US's NSA worked in cooperation with the Danish and collected digital data. The three Germans chiefly mentioned? Angela Merkel (CDU), Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) and Peer Steinbrück (SPD).
A big deal? Via ARD (public TV in Germany) and the print-media....it's a page-one type item, but I doubt that most Germans care (they already know that various elements of the German government spy on them already).
So the question to ask here....is it just the US, or could Russia or China also possibly spied on Merkel, Steinmeier and Steinbruck? Well....evidence is not existent on that possibility.
What German journalists continually harp on is that 'friends' don't spy on 'friends'. If you went up to the same folks and suggested that 50-percent of their emails and voice-communications are routinely intercepted by some KGB group? Well....it'd probably freak them out a bit. It'd be the same way if they suddenly discovered their new Chinese friend was really a CCP-undercover agent.
The attitude is that when the Cold War ended.....all this spy-on-spy business went away, and I'd argue that things just evolved....where you get on a spy list for commercial reasons (industry spying) or for influence-peddling.
As for getting all grumpy now with President Biden? Oh no....that won't happen. Steinbruck probably would laugh over himself being a target, and suggest that the most they learned is that he had a food passion for liver and onions.
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