– Citizens of 196 countries are monitored by the German Federal Intelligence Service
– Official documents prove that the surveillance is carried out with the general invocation of the risk of international terrorism
– Which companies are members – customers of the German communications hub
The German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) is monitoring electronic messages and telephone communications via the internet, according to documents cited by the newspaper "Ta Nea Savatokyriako".
These documents were given to the newspaper by a source in Germany as part of investigations into mass data interceptions worldwide, and as it turns out, according to the publication, in addition to the actions of the American and British secret services, the German secret services have also dynamically entered the game of mass surveillance of internet users.
According to a document filed during a legal dispute between a German lawyer and the BND, the surveillance is generally carried out for reasons of “international terrorism,” but the size and extent of the surveillance on foreign targets is not clear. Lawyer Nico Harting sued the BND because he believed that his e-mail communications with foreign clients could be a target of the German secret services, while he argued that the service had no right to monitor him as he is a German citizen.
Greece is also mentioned in the list of monitored countries' communications, which was given to the court a short time ago. The German secret service list in question was attached to other court documents and is titled "Telecommunications-relations".
In addition to Greece, the list includes 195 other countries and locations, including Britain, France, Belgium, as well as Wake Island in the US in the Pacific and Burkina Faso in West Africa.
As stated in a study last year by the Directorate-General for Internal Policy of the European Parliament on the rights of European citizens, within the framework of the operational activities of the German BND “a service operates which can be directly connected to digital nodes through which the flow of most foreign communications takes place”. 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 allowed to do this only on German territory. The European Parliament study states that the largest communications node in Germany is DE-CIX in Frankfurt. According to a revealing report by Spiegel, 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 Pullach near Munich.
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.
According to the NEON report, the first Greek company to reach an agreement with DE-CIX was OTEGlobe in the middle of the last decade. About a year later, in May 2011, Forthnet announced its cooperation with DE-CIX. As mentioned in the relevant press release, the German super hub provided internet connectivity to more than 45 countries at the time. The Cypriot CYTA reached an agreement with DE-CIX just a few months ago, in April 2014.
According to the publication, of the three companies, only Forthnet responded to questions posed by the newspaper about the measures the companies 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,” the company's response states, among other things.
In addition to the three 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.
Source: newsit.gr
