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A spokesman for the prosecutors office confirmed
weekend media reports that an investigation had been launched as
opposition politicians demanded more information about the
unfolding scandal from Chancellor Angela Merkel's government.
"A preliminary investigation has been started," the spokesman
said. In a related development, federal prosecutor Harald Range
himself will be questioned by a parliamentary committee looking
into the affair in Berlin on Wednesday.
Der Spiegel magazine said the BND helped the U.S. National
Security Agency over at least 10 years, embarrassing Germany and
upsetting many in a country where surveillance is a sensitive
topic due to abuses by the Nazis and the East German Stasi.
The magazine also reported that in 2013 the BND ordered staff to
delete 12,000 internet "selectors" -- IP addresses, email
addresses and phone numbers of German government officials --
that it had been tracking for the NSA.
Opposition members of parliament for the Greens and Left party
have requested more information from Merkel's government about
the BND's assistance to the NSA. German media said there were
indications EU governments and agencies, especially France, were
the targets of the BND's spying for the NSA.
"This appears to be reaching a criminal dimension," Christian
Stroebele, a senior Greens member of parliament, told the
Rheinische Post newspaper.
Airbus Group AIR.PA said on Thursday it planned to complain to
the German authorities over reports that the country's foreign
intelligence agency had helped the United States to spy on it
and other European firms.
At the heart of the controversy is the scope of cooperation
between the BND and NSA that began in 2002 after the September
11, 2001 attacks -- and how long the Chancellor's office was
aware of BND's activities on behalf of the NSA.
It is an especially touchy issue in Germany because Merkel and
many Germans reacted strongly in 2013 to reports that the NSA
had long been tapping Merkel's cell phone. "Spying among friends
is not at all acceptable," she said at the time.
(Writing by Erik Kirschbaum; additional reporting by Matthias
Sobolewski; editing by Ralph Boulton)
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