FLASH NEWS
"It was very tempting," German intelligence has been eavesdropping on Obama for years
2026-01-05 21:11:45 / BOTA
The German Federal Intelligence Service is suspected of eavesdropping on US President Barack Obama, German newspaper Die Zeit reported, citing internal sources.
According to the report, the American politician's phone calls were intercepted while he was aboard Air Force One. The surveillance reportedly continued for several years until the Chancellor's Office ended it in 2014, writes A2.
German media outlets point out that the intelligence service exploited the fact that encrypting conversations from a US government aircraft is significantly more difficult than on the ground. "That's why the Americans occasionally conducted conversations that were either poorly encrypted, with gaps in the encryption, or not encrypted at all," it points out.
The BND knew this and was aware of about a dozen frequencies that Air Force One was using for this type of communication. There was no official espionage warrant for the interception.
Obama's phone calls were properly transcribed, and only one copy circulated within the BND. The internal directive was that this single copy was to be shredded at the end. And that's what happened in most cases. "The Chancellor's Office knew nothing about this for a long time."
The BND (Federal Intelligence Service) did not comment specifically on the allegations. In response to a request from the German Press Agency (dpa) in Berlin, it stated: "The Federal Intelligence Service, as a matter of principle, does not comment publicly on matters relating to possible intelligence findings or activities." This statement, it continued, did not constitute an endorsement of the allegations.
The alleged Obama wiretapping is also interesting because the US intelligence agency NSA had been tapping the mobile phone of then-Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) for years. This became public in 2013 and led to considerable tensions in German-American relations. "Spying between friends is completely unacceptable," Merkel said angrily.
Obama seemed embarrassed at the time - it was not clear how long he had known about the spying. Merkel and Obama later worked to improve their relationship. According to Stark, the BND did not regularly wiretap Obama. But if its employees noticed transmissions on the relevant frequencies, they recorded them.
"It was authorized by the president of the BND, who could have stopped it," the journalist said. The BND also tapped conversations of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - some of them even involving US military personnel. "It was just very tempting for the BND to listen in and thus understand the mentality of the American leadership," Stark said.
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