Germany halts internet surveillance operation carried out for US

Germany has brought a halt to a long-term internet surveillance operation carried out for the US NSA intelligence service amid a growing scandal over the extent of its intelligence co-operation with Washington.

German media reported on Thursday that the BND foreign intelligence service this week suddenly stopped supplying the US with internet-based data under the terms of a longstanding co-operation pact.

The move could revive strains in security relations between the US and Germany that emerged two years ago when whistleblower Edward Snowden disclosed widespread global snooping by the NSA, including the tapping of German chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone.

Ms Merkel's government is responding to growing domestic anger over the latest affair, in which the BND allegedly helped the NSA spy on European targets, including the Airbus aerospace group and the French presidency.

The chancellor's critics are seeking clarification of reports that a US-German co-operation intelligence agreement signed in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks may have been misused to cover a far wider range of subjects than originally envisaged, including economic targets.

The latest development was reported on Thursday by the Suddeutsche newspaper and the WDR and NDR broadcasters, which all said that the BND's surveillance station in Bad Aibling, southern Germany, stopped sending the NSA information garnered from internet surveillance.

The move came after the NSA declined to give clear justification of each request for surveillance of internet-based communications, including emails. The BND will continue to spy on telephone calls and fax messages, as these are covered by separate agreements under which the NSA supplies the necessary justification.

The chancellery indicated that the decision was not taken to punish the NSA for any possible abuses of the current pact, but to create time to consider how best to redirect and reshape future co-operation.

The chancellery communicated the decision on Wednesday evening to leading members of a parliamentary committee investigating the NSA's activities.

Konstantin von Notz, the opposition Green party whip on the committee, called the move "a drastic step". He told German television: "I believe that this is an emergency release cord, because [it shows] that even in 2015 these search requests for internet traffic are still not under control."

The Greens and other government critics said that the government should have acted decisively much earlier - at the latest at the time of the 2013 Snowden revelations, when the scale of NSA snooping became public knowledge.

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The Social Democrats, Ms Merkel's partners in government, have joined the opposition Green and Left parties in demanding lists of the "selectors" provided by the NSA to the BND for tracking - including IP addresses, email addresses and search terms.

The scandal has given the chancellor's political opponents a rare opportunity to attack Ms Merkel personally after years in which she has seemed invincible, enjoying widespread support from the German public.

An opinion poll for the Bild newspaper this week showed it had hit Ms Merkel's personal standing - despite her best efforts to keep a low profile since the affair broke last month. According to the survey, 62 per cent of those polled said the affair had damaged her reputation, including 54 per cent among supporters of her conservative CDU party.

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