Ten Essential Witnesses for Investigating NSA Surveillance in
Germany (Der Spiegel, Germany)
"During the week, the Parliamentary Oversight Committee will meet
to discuss the latest revelations regarding the NSA spying assault. At that
point, a decision will likely be made as to whether to form a Bundestag
committee of inquiry. Such a committee would be unpleasant for many of those
involved. So who be called as witnesses for questioning? These are 10
suggested people who should be questioned by any NSA fact-finding committee."
Reconnaissance
mission: The heads of the German intelligence services are headed to
Washington, and an NSA fact-finding committee may soon begin its work. Edward Snowdon would be the most important witness. However, leading
German politicians and officials must also expect to be questioned.
Berlin: Should we offer
protection or close our doors? Ever since Edward Snowden expressed his
willingness to testify in Germany about the background of the NSA scandal, a
debate has broken out about how Berlin should react. Many politicians and
intellectuals have spoken to Der Spiegel in
support of granting asylum to the former intelligence agency employee. However,
the Christian Democratic Union [CDU] and Social Democratic Party [SDP] are
hesitant. They fear the damage this would cause to transatlantic relations.
One
thing is clear to all: Snowden is important, and likely the most important
figure, in this country's still pending reconnaissance. On Monday, the chiefs
of the Bundesnachrichtendienst [BND] and the Verfassungsschutz [Federal Office for the
Protection of the Constitution] are traveling to Washington to question the
United States government. During the
week, the Parliamentary Oversight Committee will meet to discuss the latest revelations
regarding the NSA spying assault. At that point, a decision will likely be made
as to whether to form a Bundestag committee of inquiry.
Such
a committee would be unpleasant for many of those involved. So who should be called
as witnesses for questioning? The CDU and SPD will
likely use their majorities to prevent their members from having to testify. If
one is serious about throwing light on the situation, however, the most important participants will have to be questioned. These are ten suggested people who should
be questioned by any NSA fact-finding committee.
Edward
Snowden:
He would be the central witness for any investigating committee. Snowden knows
the files, the codes, the operations - no one else is likely to have a
comparable detailed knowledge of the NSA surveillance scandal. How the 30-year-old
whistleblower would be questioned by such a committee remains to be seen. The CDU
and SPD are scared: they fear bringing Snowden to Germany
would be an affront to the United States.
Angela Merkel: Appearing before the committee
would be awkward for the chancellor. Not only would it be interested in the years
her cell phone was monitored, a central issue would be the credibility of her insistence
that she had no knowledge of American surveillance activities since coming to
power in 2005.
Gerhard
Schröder: Under his chancellorship, collaboration
between German and American intelligence agencies solidified. In the wake of the
September 11, 2001 attacks, Berlin and Washington agreed in principle to
improve cooperation on terror-related issues. Schröder
would have to address the question of whether his policies facilitated the expansion
of NSA surveillance in Germany.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier: As chief of the chancellery under Schröder as well as intelligence coordinator, he was responsible
for the security partnership with the United States during the red-green
government. Prior to the last elections, the CDU reproached him for a key decision
he made in 2002, which facilitated cooperation between the BND and NSA. What precisely
this decision consisted of would likely be of interest to the committee.
Ronald Pofalla: Merkel's
intelligence coordinator played an extremely unfortunate role in the NSA debate.
During the summer, he downplayed the Snowden leaks for weeks and declared the debate
over weeks before the elections and now he has become sensitized. But why prior
to the elections did Pofalla allow himself to be
fobbed off by a lukewarm statement from the NSA? And what does he know about
the collaboration that may have taken place between NSA and German intelligence
services?
Hans-Peter Friedrich: Even the
interior minister would pressed hard to justify himself before the committee. When
the affair began, the CSU man complained less about the U.S. than he did about
Berlin's anti-American attitude, fired off a few questions to the U.S. government,
and wanted to leave it at that. Recently, he has appeared more aloof toward Washington.
His zigzagging during the course of the debate will likely guarantee him an
invitation by the committee.
John
B. Emerson:
What's really happening inside the U.S. Embassy in Berlin? Barack Obama's
ambassador is quite talkative these days - but whether the government district
is spied upon from inside the Embassy, as NSA documents published by Der Spiegel suggest, Emerson doesn't say.
He would be the only conceivable American witness before a committee of inquiry.
To questions about a possible appearance he has declined to comment. That is a
"hypothetical question," he said recently - and he doesn't answer
hypothetical questions.
Gerhard
Schindler:
Not the least of concerns for the fact-finding committee would be the failure
of German counterintelligence. BND chief Schindler and his colleague in the Federal
Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maaßen,
are unlikely to avoid an appearance before a committee. What their authorities
knew, how closely they collaborated with the Americans, and why they didn't
uncover the surveillance themselves will be one of the central educational
challenges for committee of inquiry.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
August
Hanning: Head of the BND between 1998 and 2005.
In 2002, Hanning signed an agreement with the head of
the NSA at the time, Michael V. Hayden, on the interception of electronic data.
He would therefore be a key witness on how German-American cooperation was
expanded after the terrorist-attacks in New York.
The Green has become a kind of private
investigator on the NSA debate since his mission to Moscow [to meet Edward
Snowden]. The first senior politician to be received by Snowden in his "safe
house" in the Russian capital, Ströbele has for
the most part kept the contents of their conversations shrouded in silence. He
could probably provide the committee an especially interesting report on the
whistleblower's current situation.
Hans-Christian 
