Loek Essers
IDG News Service
August 15, 2013
The U.S. has verbally committed to enter into a no-spying agreement
with Germany in the wake of disclosures about the U.S. National Security
Agency’s secret surveillance programs.
The verbal commitment was given in talks with the German Federal
Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst, BND), the sole foreign
intelligence service of Germany, the German government said in a news
release on Wednesday. This means that there must be no governmental or
industrial espionage between the two countries, it said.
More common standards for the cooperation of E.U. intelligence
services are in progress, the German government added. No further
details about the agreement were given. The German Federal Ministry of
the Interior reached on Monday could not immediately respond to a
request for comment.
The no-spying agreement talks were announced as part of a progress
report on an eight-point program proposed by German Chancellor Angela
Merkel in July with measures to better protect the privacy of German
citizens. The plan was drafted “due to the current discussions about the
work of the intelligence services,” the German government said.
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