It appears that the American delegation to the Munich Security Conference had hoped they could entirely avoid the subject of NSA spying while visiting Germany. No such luck. For the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, columnist Thomas Gutschker writes that rather than going away, the gap between the United States and Germany on the issue of spying is expanding, leading to the most alarming breach between the two countries since the start of the Iraq War.
For the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Thomas Gutschker starts out this way:
Since Thomas de Mazière is no longer defense minister [now interior minister], he is acquiring a reputation for outspoken language. At the [Munich] security conference, he commented on the espionage conducted by the United States. According to de Mazière, while there is neither evidence nor fingerprints, what’s happening is “to the detriment of German citizens,” and “knows no bounds.” It was a hard-hitting sentence spoken by the new interior minister – and before an audience that included high-ranking American guests.
The statement may have caught some of them off guard, just as American Secretary of State Kerry was there to spread a completely different message: In Berlin, Kerry proclaimed that 2014 would be a “year of renewal” for Germany and America. A day later, this time in Munich, he called for a “transatlantic renaissance.”
On neither of the two occasions did Kerry have a word to spare on the activities of the NSA. Gestures of regret about eavesdropping on the chancellor and millions of Germans? – None. The U.S. government seems to think it can go back to business as usual now that President Obama announced a few restrictions on the NSA. … What a miscalculation!
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