Massive German political, economic espionage in Austria

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5 May 2015

Austria lodges legal complaint over German-US spy scandal

A German spy scandal deepens with the news that Austria has filed a legal complaint over suspicions that Germany’s intelligence services helped US National Security Agency(NSA) spy on European officials and firms. The allegations have created tensions within the ranks of Angela Merkel’s coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD). It appears the affair is unlikely to fizzle out and could prove dangerous for the Chancellor.

Read more here.

That was three years ago. And now …

Translated from Dutch NOS TV, 16 June 2017:

German intelligence service spied on thousands of targets in Austria

The German intelligence service BND kept a spy list between 1999 and 2006 with almost 2000 targets in Austria, according to revelations in the Austrian newspaper Der Standard. The list includes ministries, corporations, charity foundations, Islamic associations and arms producers.

The BND, one of the three German intelligence services, kept telephone and fax numbers and e-mail addresses of the targets and ranked the institutions and companies in categories such as “involved in money laundering” and “terrorist financing”. According to Der Standard, the information was exchanged with the American secret service NSA.

It is not clear whether the contact details, for example, were only used to register who had contact with whom, how often and for how long, or that telephone conversations and e-mails of the targets were examined in terms of content.

The Austrian government reacts with dismay at the news. “Spying on friendly states should not happen”, says Chancellor Kurz. “We want to know who has been spied on and when that stopped, and of course we want to be certain that it has stopped.”

Ministries

The list includes all banks and big corporations in Austria, as well as a number of smaller companies. That, according to Der Standard, raises the question whether this is industrial espionage. Among the Austrian government targets the Ministries of Finance and Home Affairs and the office of the Chancellor are on the list. The BND did not want to respond to questions from Der Standard.

Furthermore, it is striking that a number of embassies were also tapped. In addition to the more or less predictable goals such as the embassies of Iran, North Korea and Russia, there are also a number of embassies of European Union and NATO countries, such as France, Greece and the United States.

No spying on friends

It was only in 2013 that Chancellor Angela Merkel was informed about the espionage targets, writes Der Standard on the basis of sources at the intelligence service. That happened after it became known that the German government had been tapped by the American intelligence services. “You should not spy on friends”, Merkel said.

Thereafter, Der Spiegel revealed that the BND itself had also spied on targets in friendly nations to serve the US NSA. Merkel said last year that she was only informed about the BND’s practices in 2015. But sources at the BND say to Der Standard that she knew about it from 2013 onwards.