Mps urge clarification of crypto-abhoraffare
After the revelations about decades of spying on dozens of countries by the secret services BND and CIA, members of parliament in germany and switzerland demand clarification.
"It is outrageous that the BND and the CIA have apparently spied on friends and enemies in such a crude operation," said stephan thomae, deputy leader of the FDP parliamentary group in the bundestag.
"This could develop into the grossest spy affair in the history of the federal republic". The federal chancellery must now immediately break its silence and initiate a full and complete clarification of the affair.
Andre hahn, deputy chairman of the left-wing parliamentary group, spoke of an "unprecedented scandal in the history of the federal intelligence service, should even a fraction of the information available so far be true".
The accusations raised after the revelations by edward snowden had been confirmed once again. "The mass surveillance of all communications worldwide that are somehow available, as well as the spying on friends and political partners, obviously did not just happen in recent times, but this procedure has a tradition that goes back decades and is, in my view, absolutely unfortunate."
Politicians in switzerland also do not want to let the affair about the manipulated sealing technology rest and have called for an investigative committee. The fact that swiss crypto AG was involved in bugging operations was first reported over 20 years ago.
But the outcome was shocking, petra gossi, chairwoman of the swiss FDP, told the tamedia newspapers (wednesday edition). It was also unknown that CIA and BND were owners of the crypto AG according to the investigations of the swiss radio and television SRF, the ZDF and the "washington post" and that income of the company flowed into black coffers of the BND.
Crypto AG is said to have manipulated the encryption devices sold all over the world to encrypt secret communications. This made the news easier for her to decipher. Among the customers paid about 120 countries, including iran, sudamerican governments, as well as india and pakistan. In the process, intelligence agencies are said to have accessed the encrypted information, a former crypto employee told SRF. Former chancellor’s office minister bernd schmidbauer (CDU) confirmed to ZDF the intelligence activities of "operation rubicon. According to the text, the BND ended its cooperation with the CIA in 1993.
Among others, the news magazine "der spiegel" had already reported in 1996 on the suspicion that german and US intelligence services had manipulated the encryption of the crypto AG in order to be able to spy better in crisis regions. The text spoke of the "most brazen intelligence feint of the century". The company had described this at the time as "pure invention". In 1999, scottish investigative journalist duncan campbell had also reported to the european parliament about the activities of crypto AG.
Crypto AG, headquartered in zug, was split in 2018 into cyone security AG and crypto international. The owner of crypto international, andreas linde, told the broadcaster SRF that there are no relations to the CIA.