German authorities arrest U.S. spy

[Middle-aged Europe]

A member of Germany's foreign intelligence service BND has been arrested on the charges of espionage.

Apparently, he's been accused of giving information on the Bundestag committee of inquiry on the the NSA's acitivites in Germany to an as-of-yet unspecified U.S. intelligence agency.

Articles (in German):

http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/festnahme-spion-100.html

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/bnd-mitarbeiter-soll-fuer-die-usa-spioniert-haben-a-979199.html

[Middle-aged Europe]

I know it won't make you or your fellow countrymen feel better, but everybody spies on everybody.  Even you guys on us.

Given how closely entangled the BND seems to be with the CIA sometimes, I'm having doubt about that.

The impression the BND gave so far is that they're spying on us for the CIA as a service of friendship. Granted, sometimes the BND is getting something in return. But their relationship is far from being adversarial. The CIA gives the BND information on terrorists, and the BND gives the CIA information on the German government. That's how it seems to work.

[Middle-aged Europe]

and sometimes the BND gives VW info on GM.

If anything, it proves that the BND is in the pocket of both American intelligence agencies and German corporations and lends it services to anyone who pays them enough. The issue is if the BND is actually doing anything for the German government.

Even if there were no proof, it would be naïve to think you guys aren't spying on your more important allies.  It would be dumb not to.

Intelligence agencies have a long history of doing dumb things. Hence the oxymoron.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Some more information on the alleged spy:

He's a low-level civil servant in the BND. He claims that he offered his services to the Americans on his own initiative, by writing an e-mail to the U.S. embassy in Berlin. Before he went to the Americans, he tried to offer himself to the Russians, but they must have turned him down or something. The Americans supposedly paid him "tens of thousands" of Euros for the information he provided.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Another possible American spy was detected (this time in the German Ministry of Defence) and as a result the German government has declared the CIA station chief in Berlin an undesirable person who's expected to leave the country.

http://www.dw.de/germany-asks-top-us-spy-in-berlin-to-leave-country-amid-undercover-agent-investigation/a-17773162

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/07/09/world/europe/germany-us-spying-investigation/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

[Middle-aged Europe]

Mike Rogers: Germany throwing "temper tantrum".

The bottomline is that government surveillance - that is surveillance by any government, be it the German or the American one - is a touchy subject for at least some Germans. It's no concidence that aside from Sweden, the Pirate Party had its biggest electoral successes here. It was for this reason that the Snowden disclosures were a pretty big deal around here. Last June, Obama was in Berlin and assured that no spying against Germany was occuring anymore. This means that Obama was either lying or he's unable to keep his own intelligence agencies under control.

For more than a year now, Angela Merkel has been criticized by German opposition parties and the German media for being too soft on America regarding this issue. And this is why the CIA station chief is expelled: to restore the credibility of her government.