New NSA leaks anger Germany's politicians

Baku. 2 July. REPORT.AZ/ German lawmakers have voiced their anger over the U.S. intelligence agency NSA’s alleged widespread surveillance of Chancellor Angela Merkel and several other German ministers and bureaucrats.

Report informs referring the information given by the Anadolu Agency, at the German parliament Thursday, Martina Renner, a senior lawmaker from the opposition Left Party, said that the recent revelations strengthened suspicions that the NSA had long carried out economic and industrial espionage in Germany and Europe, and tried to monitor economic, trade and finance policies of the German government.

Renner, who is also a member of the parliament’s NSA investigation committee, called on the German government to immediately inform the parliament about the scope of the latest scandal, as well as the diplomatic steps it considered against Washington.

“German government should immediately make it clear after this recent scandal that it stands on the side of the parliament’s investigation committee. It should submit all relevant documents to our committee, which it refrained to do so far,” she said.

The whistleblowing website, WikiLeaks, released new documents Wednesday about NSA’s alleged mass surveillance activities, which included a top secret report on the wiretapped telephone conversations between Merkel and her aide in 2011 on the Greek economic crisis.

The site also leaked a list of 69 German government phone numbers that the NSA considered valued targets for interceptions.

On Thursday, Peter Altmaier, a close aide of Merkel and minister responsible for intelligence, summoned the U.S. ambassador to Germany, John B. Emerson, to the Prime Ministry, to convey Berlin’s protest.