German intelligence agents have been caught spying on a German journalist -- again. The controversy over e-mails collected from a SPIEGEL reporter has become a national scandal. Chancellor Merkel says her faith in her spy chief has been rattled, while German papers wonder if the service can be trusted at all.


DDP
Ernst Uhrlau, top German spy.
Germany's foreign intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendiesnst (BND), has spied on journalists before: In 2005 it emerged that German reporters were placed under surveillance by agents who wanted to ferret out the sources of leaks from the BND. It was a big scandal. There was a public uproar, and the government installed a new BND president, Ernst Uhrlau, who swore to make the service more "transparent."

The latest scandal is like déjà vu. E-mails by a German journalist -- this time at SPIEGEL -- have been collected by German intelligence agents. The apparent target of the surveillance was Mohammed Amin Farhang, Afghanistan's Economy Minister, who traded e-mails with SPIEGEL reporter Susanne Koelbl between June and November 2006. She was sending him pieces of an in-progress book about Afghanistan.

Her correspondence was retrieved using Trojan-Horse software that invaded the minister's computer system and sent copies of his e-mail back to the BND. In the meantime Germany's highest court has severely restricted (more...) the use of spyware against German citizens. It's doubtful the verdict will have a bearing on this case, but Mr. Farhang happens to carry a German passport...

(Der Spiegel)