German secret service spies on journalists

international | rights, freedoms and repression | other press

Friday May 19, 2006 10:58

by Terence

Employs Stasi like methods

The German secret service has been spying on journalists for over 25 years. The question is could it happen here and elsewhere. Undoubtably the answer must be yes. Why would it be any different anywhere else?

This report details more than 25 years of spying by the German secret service (BND) on German journalist, even though all BND activity was supposed to be foreign related.

If this was happening in Germany, then we can be sure it was happening in other countries too like the UK, France, Italy. Indeed probably all countries including our very own here ... with of course the tapping of journalists phones here in the 1980s and no doubt continued.

It also is yet further proof that the facade of Western democracy is a sham because it clearly show governments go to great lengths to hide what they consider really important and used the spying to follow up what stories were been leaked, by whom and what stories were being covered so as to help in the spread of spin and disinformation in order to manipulate public opinion and keep the system humming just nicely for those it serves.

The report recounts how this took place and provides some of the details. For example:

"Germany’s secret service has systematically spied on journalists for years. The Federal Information Service (BND) not only used its own agents, but also other journalists who were paid to supply reports to the secret service and shadowed colleagues who investigated the work of the BND."

"An investigation by a former judge at the Federal High Court, Gerhard Schäfer .... details some 25 years of persistent spying on selected journalists. ...

Schäfer’s report casts a spotlight on the illegal intrigues of the BND, which far exceed the agency’s powers, dispense with constitutional norms and stand outside all control. Schäfer repeatedly describes the practices of the secret service as “disproportionate” and “clearly illegal.” He identifies a blatant “interference with press freedoms.”

The report uncovers a dense network of BND informants and shadowing operations targeting various editorial offices, recalling the practices of the Stasi, East Germany’s notorious state security agency."

"A former Focus editor, named as “Wilhelm Di.,” operating between 1982 and 1998 under the cover names “the silent one” and “Dali,” received 653,000 deutsche marks for some 856 reports sent to the BND. Together with “Erwin De.,” pseudonym “Bosch,” he spied on Focus reporter Josef Hufelschulte. The two reported with whom Hufelschulte met, which contacts he had and trips he planned to make. In addition, Hufelschulte was shadowed by up to eight BND agents, who followed him into underground car parks and to the weekly market."

And in a bizarre example of the BND actually running an operation to create a story which they then "exposed" all for the purpose of political gain, the article recounts:

"In particular, journalists working for the news magazine Der Spiegel were shadowed by BND agents after the magazine had reported in 1995 on a plutonium deal set up by the BND itself.

With “Operation Hades” in 1994, the German secret service had sought to foment panic and expose a worldwide trade in weapons-grade plutonium. The results of an artificially created “successful investigation” were to be released just before federal and state elections to influence the political result. In the end, it turned out that the BND had arranged the whole deal itself and had transported 363 grams of highly poisonous plutonium on a passenger plane from Moscow to Munich, ignoring all safety precautions."

Full report:
German secret service spies on journalists, employs Stasi methods
at: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/may2006/germ-m19_prn....shtml

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German secret service spies on journalists