Electronic messages and internet from Greece are being monitored by the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND), according to documents available to "NEWS".
The interceptions, according to a document filed during a legal dispute between a German lawyer and the BND, are generally carried out for reasons of “international terrorism,” but the scale and extent of the interceptions on foreign targets is unclear. Lawyer Nico Harting sued the BND because he believed that his e-mail communications with foreign clients could be targeted by the German secret services, while arguing that the service had no right to monitor him as he is a German citizen.
Greece is also mentioned in the list of countries whose communications are being monitored. The German secret service's list was attached to other court documents and is titled "Telecommunications-relations." In addition to Greece, the list also includes 195 countries and locations whose communications it has allegedly been monitoring since April 2010.
The documents were provided to the newspaper by a source in Germany as part of investigations into mass data interceptions worldwide. It appears that, in addition to Operation 111 by the American and British secret services, the German secret services have also entered the game of mass surveillance of Internet users.
A study last year by the European Parliament’s Directorate-General for Internal Policies on European citizens’ rights stated that within the framework of the operational activities of the German BND “a service operates which can be directly connected to digital nodes through which most foreign communications flow”. According to German law, German secret services are allowed to search up to 20% of communications that have “foreign elements” with certain keywords for the purposes of combating terrorism or protecting the Constitution. Of course, they are only allowed to do this on German soil.
The European Parliament study states that the largest communications hub in Germany is DE-CIX in Frankfurt. In a revealing report by Spiegel, which is mentioned in the study, it is stated that the German secret services have set up special offices and facilities at this location to divert incoming data traffic, copy and transfer the data for further analysis to the BND headquarters in Pulag near Munich.
Greek companies
The "NEON" survey shows that three telecommunications companies operating in Greece are among the more than 550 DE-CIX member-clients: Forthnet, OTEGlobe, and the Cypriot CYTA, which is also active in our country.
The first Greek company to reach an agreement with DE-CIX was OTEGlobe in the middle of the last decade. From the evidence presented by the BND to the court, it is not known whether the surveillance was carried out since 2005, when the relevant agreement was signed between the Greek company and the German telecommunications hub - however, it is clear that the secret services have been carrying out such activities since April 2010.
About a year later, in May 2011, Forthnet announced its partnership with DE-CIX. As stated in the relevant press release, the German super hub was then providing internet connectivity to more than 45 countries. The Cypriot CYT reached an agreement with DE-CIX just a few months ago, in April 2014.
As the publication reports, only Forthnet responded to questions the newspaper addressed to the three companies regarding the measures they take to ensure telecommunications privacy. “Forthnet, fully adopting the mandates of Greek legislation and the regulatory framework for ensuring the privacy of communications, takes all the necessary technical and organizational measures for the operation of its network for the security of the data being transmitted,” it notes, among other things.
In addition to the 3 companies of purely Greek interest, DE-CIX is also partnered with giants of the internet, IT and telecommunications that provide their services to Greek citizens. Examples include Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Verisign, Yahoo!, Amazon, LinkedIn, Ebay, Deutsche Telecom and others.
