The cat does not let the mouse free....says Zioconned BND creeps....
U.S. spies have been spying on their counterparts in East Germany and West Germany, recently released documents indicate.
The CIA was expected to monitor East German spies during the Cold War, but U.S. documents indicated Americans were spying on their allies in West Germany's Bundesnachrichtendienst as well, The Local reported Monday.
The German magazine Focus said documents indicated office alliances, personal peccadilloes and health information were noted.
The spying continued into the 1990s, even after the fall of communism, with BND agents with a Nazi past drawing attention, the magazine reported.
Focus said the documents indicated telephone calls with Germany's domestic intelligence and security authority were tapped, as were conversations with other security services in Paris and London.
BND said they weren't surprised by the news they were being spied on by the CIA.
A former BND counterintelligence expert told Focus he and colleagues often thought such clandestine operations were undertaken.
"The cat does not let the mouse free," the former spy said when asked if he thought the CIA were still spying on the BND.
American spies have been keeping tabs on their Teutonic counterparts for decades – not only the East Germans of the Cold War, but also allied West Germans, according to newly released documents.
US intelligence agencies collected highly personal information on their allies, according to a report in weekly magazine Focus on Monday.
Staff at the Central Intelligence Agency were expected to keep tabs on communist East German spies during the Cold War, but US documents show they were doing the same to their supposed friends at West Germany's Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND).
Office politics within the BND as well as details of personal factors such as alcoholism and infidelity were carefully noted, as well as health information such as which agents had suffered heart attacks, the magazine reported.
One file entry even records the wooden leg of an aristocratic West German agent.
Even after the fall of communism in 1989, the spying continued into the 1990s, with those BND agents with a Nazi past in particular attracting attention. Two former SS members were drafted into a sabotage unit of NATO, according to the papers.
The files also suggest the tapping of some telephone calls with the Federal Office for Protection of the Constitution (Verfassungsschutz), Germany’s domestic intelligence and security authority.
Conversations with other security services in Paris and London were also tapped, Focus reported.
The BND did not seem surprised by the idea of being spied upon by the CIA, with a former BND counterintelligence expert telling the magazine that he and his colleagues had often thought such operations were being undertaken.
When asked whether he thought the CIA was still spying on the BND, he replied using a suitably spooky phrase, saying, “The cat does not let the mouse free.”
