Germany asks U.S. ambassador for talks on spying reports

“Such repeated events strain German and American intelligence cooperation which is essential for the safety of our citizens”, spokesman Steffen Seibert said in a statement.

Wikileaks documents that show the National Security Agency (NSA) has been spying on German officials from various departments surfaced Wednesday.

It said the complaint is initially directed against “unknown persons” but that it hopes to compel the government to provide further information that would identify those it claims broke German laws on espionage and communications privacy.

While it wasn’t immediately possible to confirm the accuracy of the revelation, the AP cited the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung – which said it had been given access to documents received by WikiLeaks – as reporting that the list of phone numbers appeared to be from a period between 2010 and 2012, and at least some are still in use.

Partly in collaboration with British secret services, the NSA reportedly targeted 69 phone numbers of the German government and showed particular interest in activities of the ministries of finance, economy and agriculture.

The cable states: “Discussing the Greek financial crisis with her personal assistant on 11 October, German Chancellor Angela Merkel professed to be at a loss as to which option – another haircut or a transfer union – would be best for addressing the situation”.

In her speech on Tuesday, while discussing attacks on mosques in Germany, Merkel said that incidents targeting places of worship are “a blow to all of us” because these attacks go against freedom of religion and democracy.

Patrick Sensburg, CDU/CSU lawmaker and head of the German parliamentary committee investigating the NSA activities, also demanded an explanation from the U.S.

“Merkel needs to come out and start fighting right away”, said Christian Flisek of the Social Democrats, partners in Merkel’s “grand coalition” government.

On a mobile phone?

But Chief Prosecutor-General Harald Range shelved the investigation last month, for lack of what it called legally-sound evidence.

“What I can tell you is that nothing’s changed about the strong relationship that we have and will continue to have with Germany”, spokesman John Kirby said.

The revelations about United States espionage in Germany provoked outrage in a country still haunted by the memory of mass surveillance by the East German Stasi.