Opinion: Merkel Must End Devil’s Pact with America
The US began systematically spying on the German government at least since 1999 (perhaps even earlier); in other words, two years before the attacks on New York and Washington. It is questionable that the German Agricultural Ministry’s fisheries department, which the NSA also spied on, had anything to do with Osama bin Laden or al-Qaida.
.. It wasn’t security of the Western world that concerned the Americans. Instead they pursued their own interests, unscrupulously vying for slight political advantages in diplomatic dealings and in the struggle for economic prosperity. The reference to the terrorist threat has long become a fig leaf for habitual and brazen espionage.
.. But through her silence, Merkel has made the German government complicit. She allowed the law to be broken. She also permitted the principles that characterize open, democratic societies to be compromised.
The German government had the wrong priorities. There is no guarantee of security. Fear of an attack is no reason to sacrifice legal principles.