ISIS training militants to pass refugee application procedures in Europe – report

Flashback:

Europol: 5,000 ISIS Militants Trained In Syria & Iraq Walk Free In Europe


ISIS training militants to pass refugee application procedures in Europe – report:

Islamic State specifically trains militants to camouflage themselves as ordinary refugees and pass necessary application procedures to be granted asylum in European countries, according to sources in German intelligence.

The terrorist group is teaching militants methods of infiltrating Europe as refugees while not attracting attention from law enforcement agencies, according to a Die Welt report citing Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND).

In particular, the training is focused on creating the impression of a “classical” asylum seeker in case of interrogation by police officers or questions from fellow migrants, the BND said, choosing not to elaborate on the topic.

Read moreISIS training militants to pass refugee application procedures in Europe – report

Germany confirms departure of spy agency chief

Germany confirms departure of spy agency chief:

The German government confirmed on Wednesday that Gerhard Schindler, the head of the BND foreign intelligence agency, would leave his post two years early but provided no reason for the surprise change.

In a short statement, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief of staff Peter Altmaier said Schindler, who has run the BND since 2012 and is not due to retire until 2018, would be replaced on July 1 by Bruno Kahl, an official in the finance ministry responsible for privatizations and government real estate.

“The BND faces major challenges over the coming years, encompassing all aspects of its work,” Altmaier said.

Read moreGermany confirms departure of spy agency chief

NSA ‘asked’ Germany’s BND to spy on Siemens over alleged links with Russian intel

nsa-bnd-germany-siemens-spy

NSA ‘asked’ Germany’s BND to spy on Siemens over alleged links with Russian intel (RT, May 10, 2015):

The NSA has reportedly sought the help of Germany’s intelligence agency in spying on Munich-based Siemens over the company’s suspected business with Russian intelligence, Bild am Sonntag newspaper revealed. Siemens has denied any connection with Russia.

The revelation came from an unknown US intelligence source speaking to Germany’s Bild am Sonntag, and is the latest report in a spy scandal involving a widening gap in trust between the Americans and the Germans.

Read moreNSA ‘asked’ Germany’s BND to spy on Siemens over alleged links with Russian intel

Germany’s BND Helped NSA Spy On EU Politicians And Companies

Flashback:

Germany’s BND Cooperated With NSA As Merkel Denied Knowledge


Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) Berlin
The new Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) building in Berlin

NSA spied on EU politicians and companies with help from German intelligence (Ars Technica, April 24, 2015):

Germany’s intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), has been helping the NSA spy on European politicians and companies for years, according to the German news magazine Der Spiegel. The NSA has been sending lists of “selectors”—identifying telephone numbers, e-mail and IP addresses—to the BND, which then provides related information that it holds in its surveillance databases. According to the German newspaper Die Zeit, the NSA sent selector lists several times a day, and altogether 800,000 selectors have been requested.

The BND realized as early as 2008 that some of the selectors were not permitted according to its internal rules, or covered by a 2002 US-Germany anti-terrorism “Memorandum of Agreement” on intelligence cooperation. And yet it did nothing to check the NSA’s requests systematically. It was only in the summer of 2013, after Edward Snowden’s revelations of massive NSA and GCHQ surveillance, that the BND finally started an inquiry into all the selectors that had been processed.

Read moreGermany’s BND Helped NSA Spy On EU Politicians And Companies

Dr. Jim Willie, Reporting On The Ukraine Mess (Video)

Commentary:

‘Bilderberg Merkel’ is only another elite puppet, like Bilderberg puppets Schmidt, Kohl and Schröder before her.

angela-merkel

Germany cannot do anything on its own. The problem is that under the ‘Geheime Staatsvertrag’ (= secret treaty) as reported by the former German MAD (= Militärischer Abschirmdienst = Military Counterintelligence Service) chief Gerd-Helmut Komossa all German media and the chancellor itself  are under control by the allied forces (US, UK, France) until 2099.

die-deutsche-karte

The ‘Geheime Staatsvertrag’ also regulates that the German gold reserves stay exactly where they are (as collateral).

Here is an …

Internal BND (Bundesnachrichtendient) document only for ministers (“NUR Für Minister”)

T O P   S E C R E T ( Strengste Vertraulichkeit)

It states that copy No.4 of the ‘Geheime Staatsvertrag’ has been lost and also describes in detail what it has been all about.

The document further states that if copy No. 4 of the ‘Geheime Staatsvertrag’ gets into the wrong hand its authenticity should be denied.

geheimerstaatsvertragkopie4teil_1

geheimerstaatsvertragkopie4teil_2

Also there is a quote by Egon Bahr, minister from 1972 bis 1976 under Chancellor Willy Brandt, stating that Brandt had to sign 3 letters for the ambassadors of the US, the UK and France.

Brandt was reportedly disgusted by having to sign this ‘Unterwerfungsbrief’ (letter of subjugation), but was told that Konrad Adenauer, Ludwig Erhard and Kurt Georg Kiesinger had to sign these letters as well.



Sep 1, 2014

Dr. Jim Willie joins me to present some important recent developments that bode ill for the dollar as Germany / France and other former allies and partners of the US are now aligning themselves with Russia / China and the BRICS bloc.

Germany tapped John Kerry’s phone, spied on Turkey for years

Germany tapped John Kerry’s phone, spied on Turkey for years – report (RT, Aug 17, 2014):

Germany’s foreign intelligence agency eavesdropped at least one telephone conversation of US Secretary of State John Kerry and spied on NATO ally Turkey since 2009, Der Spiegel newspaper revealed on Saturday.

Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) picked up the phone call “by accident” in 2013, the weekly newspaper reported in a pre-publication citing unnamed sources. Kerry was discussing the Middle East tensions between Israelis, Palestinians and Arab states in a satellite link, according to Der Spiegel.

The new revelation comes after German media – Daily newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) and regional public broadcasters NDR and WDR – reported on Friday that BND intercepted at least one phone call made by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The date of the call was not given and the media said that it was also picked up “by accident”.

Read moreGermany tapped John Kerry’s phone, spied on Turkey for years

Germany Instructs Its Companies To Limit Cooperation, Procurement Orders With The US – Update: It Just Got Worse

Germany Instructs Its Companies To Limit Cooperation, Procurement Orders With The US (ZeroHedge, July 11, 2014):

Update: it just got worse. Moments ago Bloomberg followed up with the second, and expected, part of this story, namely that just like China cut off major US corporations from big procurement contracts leading to a collapse in CSCO and IBM Asian revenues, it is now Germany’s turn. Per Bloomberg, the German Interior Ministry reviewing rules for awarding govt contracts for computer, communications equipment and services as political rift w/ U.S. widens, people familiar with matter told Bloomberg News’ Cornelius Rahn, Amy Thomson.

  • Ministry will probably issue new purchasing guidelines in coming weeks to replace “no-spy-order” dated April 30
  • Details being worked out, may require suppliers of components of bidder’s goods or services to guarantee they don’t hand over confidential data
  • IBM, CSCO, MSFT may be affected by any tightening of procurement procedures: Forrester Research analyst Andrew Rose

* * *

Congratulations America: after severing ties with Russia, crushing cordial relations with China (leading to this stunning announcement by China’s president), alienating France (which is now openly calling for an end to the petrodollar), the Obama administration – following not one, not two, but three spying scandals in just the past year – has managed to sour relations with Germany to a point where one wonders just who is a remaining US ally in Europe these days.

According to Bloomberg, the German chancellor’s office has issued instructions to national intelligence services to limit cooperation with U.S. following alleged U.S. spying case, Bild reports without saying where it got information.

The newspaper also says:

Read moreGermany Instructs Its Companies To Limit Cooperation, Procurement Orders With The US – Update: It Just Got Worse

New Leaks Show Germany’s Collusion With NSA

The BND has been in bed with the CIA since its creation.


New leaks show Germany’s collusion with NSA (Deutsche Welle, June 21, 2014):

Several new Snowden-leaked documents show how closely Germany’s intelligence agencies work with the NSA. But did the German government deliberately soften laws protecting privacy to make life easier for them?

This week German news magazine Der Spiegel published the largest single set of files leaked by whistleblower and former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. The roughly 50 documents show the depth of the German intelligence agencies’ collusion with the NSA.

They suggest that the German Intelligence Agency (BND), the country’s foreign spy agency, and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), the German domestic spy agency, worked more closely with the NSA than they have admitted – and more than many observers thought.

Read moreNew Leaks Show Germany’s Collusion With NSA

Chaos Computer Club Files Criminal Complaint Against The German Government

Chaos Computer Club files criminal complaint against the German Government (Chaos Computer Club, Feb 3, 2014):

On Monday, the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) and the International League for Human Rights (ILMR), have filed a criminal complaint with the Federal Prosecutor General’s office. The complaint is directed against the German federal government, the presidents of the German secret services, namely Bundesnachrichtendienst, Militärischer Abschirmdienst, Bundesamt für Verfassungschutz, and others. We accuse US, British and German secret agents, their supervisors, the German Minister of the Interior as well as the German Chancelor of illegal and prohibited covert intelligence activities, of aiding and abetting of those activities, of violation of the right to privacy and obstruction of justice in office by bearing and cooperating with the electronic surveillance of German citizens by NSA and GCHQ.

After months of press releases about mass surveillance by secret services and offensive attacks on information technology systems, we now have certainty that German and other countries’ secret services have violated the German criminal law. With this criminal complaint, we hope to finally initiate investigations by the Federal Prosecutor General against the German government. The CCC has learned with certainty that the leaders of the secret services and the federal government have aided and abetted the commission of these crimes.

Read moreChaos Computer Club Files Criminal Complaint Against The German Government

GCHQ And European Spy Agencies Worked Together On Mass Surveillance

Related info:

WTF? NSA Chief Says Phone Records Were Swept Up As Part Of A NATO Defence Program, Not NSA Spying

If the elitists really want to create a New World Order then the spy agencies have to work together in order to eventually become one big brother spy agency, ..

… but that is a conspiracy, right?

“We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.”
– David Rockefeller

Vice President Joe Biden: The ‘Affirmative Task’ Before Us Is To ‘Create A NEW WORLD ORDER’ (Video, April 5, 2013)

BARACK OBAMA: BRITAIN AND US WILL FORGE NEW WORLD

German Chancellor Angela Merkel Calls For NEW WORLD ORDER (ARD – Tagesthemen, June 4, 2011)

President Obama’s New World Order: ‘We have to shape an international order that can meet the challenges of our generation’

Mikhail Gorbachev: Uprisings Signal an Emerging ‘NEW WORLD ORDER’

Pope Benedict XVI Calls for NEW FINANCIAL ORDER With ‘Real Teeth’

Gordon Brown Praises New World Order (19 Feb 2010)


Edward Snowden papers unmask close technical cooperation and loose alliance between British, German, French, Spanish and Swedish spy agencies


In this photo illustration, the logos of intelligence agencies the NSA, BND, GCHQ, DGSE are displayed on folders. Photograph: Ulrich Baumgarten via Getty Images

GCHQ and European spy agencies worked together on mass surveillance (Guardian, Nov 1, 2013):

The German, French, Spanish and Swedish intelligence services have all developed methods of mass surveillance of internet and phone traffic over the past five years in close partnership with Britain’s GCHQ eavesdropping agency.

The bulk monitoring is carried out through direct taps into fibre optic cables and the development of covert relationships with telecommunications companies. A loose but growing eavesdropping alliance has allowed intelligence agencies from one country to cultivate ties with corporations from another to facilitate the trawling of the web, according to GCHQ documents leaked by the former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

The files also make clear that GCHQ played a leading role in advising its European counterparts how to work around national laws intended to restrict the surveillance power of intelligence agencies.

The German, French and Spanish governments have reacted angrily to reports based on National Security Agency (NSA) files leaked by Snowden since June, revealing the interception of communications by tens of millions of their citizens each month. US intelligence officials have insisted the mass monitoring was carried out by the security agencies in the countries involved and shared with the US.

The US director of national intelligence, James Clapper, suggested to Congress on Tuesday that European governments’ professed outrage at the reports was at least partly hypocritical. “Some of this reminds me of the classic movie Casablanca: ‘My God, there’s gambling going on here,’ ” he said.

Read moreGCHQ And European Spy Agencies Worked Together On Mass Surveillance

Germany’s BND Cooperated With NSA As Merkel Denied Knowledge

Research the connections between the Nazis, the BND and the CIA and you will not be surprised at all.



An aerial view of the construction site of the new Federal Intelligence Service (BND) headquarters in Chausseestrasse in the district of Mitte in Berlin.(Reuters / Robert Grahn)

Germany intelligence cooperated with NSA as Merkel denied knowledge – report (RT, July 21, 2013):

Der Spiegel magazine has revealed German intelligence operated one of NSA’s spying programs. Chancellor Angela Merkel had denied any previous knowledge of NSA’s tactics, adding that she first learned about them through the media.

Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, along with the domestic intelligence agency the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), used American National Security Agency’s (NSA) XKeyScore program, according to Spiegel  which claims to have seen the US intelligence service’s secret documents.

The BfV office had the XKeyScore program, which was installed to “expand their ability to support NSA as we jointly prosecute CT (counterterrorism) targets.” And the BND office was tasked with showing the BfV how to operate the program, the secret documents said.

An internal NSA presentation from 2008 revealed that XKeyScore is able to expose any terms a person under surveillance has typed into a search engine and receive a “full intake” of all unfiltered data over a period of several days, including content of communications.

The program uses metadata – information about data connections – to access the targeted information.

The documents also disclosed that up to 500 million German data connections were accessed monthly by the NSA. The majority of the connections were collected through the XKeyScore program.

Documents also reveal  cooperation between the NSA and Germany recently strengthened, referencing BND head Gerhard Schindler’s “eagerness and desire”.

“The BND has been working to influence the German government to relax interpretation of the privacy laws to provide greater opportunities of intelligence sharing,” Spiegel quotes the NSA as saying in January. And in 2012 Germany showed a “willingness to take risks and to pursue new opportunities for cooperation with the US.”

The document further stated that BND was NSA’s “most prolific partner” in information gathering in Afghanistan.

The magazine reports that the relationship between the two is close “on a personal level” and at the end of April, just before Edward Snowden’s first revelations about NSA spying programs, a 12-member high-level BND delegation was invited to the NSA to meet specialists on the subject of “data acquisition.”

The BND, BfV and the NSA have refused to comment about their connection.

In the meantime, Chancellor Merkel spoke out strongly in favor of an international agreement to protect electronic data.

“We should be able, in the 21st century, to sign global agreements,” Merkel told the weekly Welt am Sonntag in an interview published on Sunday. “If digital communication raises new questions worldwide, then we should take up the challenge. Germany is working for that.”

Angela Merkel is facing re-election on September 22 and has received pressure from critics to admit what she knew about the US online surveillance.

It emerged recently that Germany happens to be the most-snooped-on EU country by the American National Security Agency (NSA). The NSA’s real-time online surveillance PRISM program allows US intelligence agencies to intercept virtually any communications over the internet, phone calls and makes possible direct access to files stored on the servers of major internet companies.In early July, US fugitive Edward Snowden accused Germany and the US of partnering in spy intelligence operations, revealing that cooperation between the countries is closer than German indignation would indicate.

Chancellor Merkel declared that she learnt about the US surveillance programs, such as the NSA’s PRISM spy program, “through the current reporting” in the media.

Yet, Angela Merkel in interview to Die Zeit weekly stressed that “America has been, and is, our most loyal ally over the decades,” but pointed out that Washington should clear up the situation with the US allegedly bugging the embassies of European countries and EU facilities, noting that “the Cold War is over.”

The German government subsequently summoned US Ambassador Philip Murphy to Berlin to explain the incendiary reports.

Elsa Rassbach, an anti-war activist with the organization Code Pink, told RT that Germany is caught in the middle when it comes to Washington’s choice of overseas military and intelligence bases.

“On the one hand, Germany is the most important military base in Europe for the US. They have the Central Command for Europe and the Central Command for Africa in Stuttgart, which report directly to the Pentagon as the main military commands for those areas,” she said, listing a number of other examples, including the Ramstein Air Force and intelligence base. “But on the other hand, as a result of German history, we have this great concern about maintaining international law. The Germans I believe came to feel that they had learned from what happened in World War II that this was very important. So there’s a contradiction, because the US is using these bases in Germany to violate international law.”

Snowden: NSA Is ‘In Bed With The Germans’

From the article:

“The Der Spiegel report also indicates that the German Federal Intelligence Service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) and NSA work very closely together.”

CIA, NSA and the BND have always worked very closely together.

Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) history (Wikipedia):

The predecessor of the BND is the German eastern military intelligence agency during World War II, the Abteilung Fremde Heere Ost or FHO Section in the General Staff, led by Wehrmacht Major General Reinhard Gehlen. Its main purpose was to collect information on the Red Army. After the war Gehlen sided with the US occupiers. In 1946 he set up an intelligence agency informally known as the Gehlen Organization or simply “The Org” and recruited, initially quite modestly, some of his former co-workers. Many were operatives of Admiral Wilhelm Canaris’ war-time Abwehr organization, but Gehlen also recruited from the former Sicherheitsdienst, SS and Gestapo. The latter recruits were later controversial because the SS and its associated groups were notoriously linked to many Nazi atrocities during the war.[2] The organization worked at first almost exclusively for the CIA, which contributed funding, equipment, cars, gasoline and other materials. On 1 April 1956 the Bundesnachrichtendienst was created from the Gehlen Organization, and transferred to the West German government, with the recruits of the former Sicherheitsdienst, SS and Gestapo. Reinhard Gehlen became President of the BND and remained its head until 1968.

Germany lost the Second World War, FASCISM won it.

Operation Paperclip: The CIA and the Nazis

YouTube

And we are all witnessing the rise of the Fourth Reich.


Snowden: NSA is ‘in bed with the Germans’ (RT, July 7, 2013):

US fugitive Edward Snowden has accused Germany and the US of partnering in spy intelligence operations, revealing that cooperation between the countries is closer than German indignation would indicate, Der Spiegel magazine reported.

“They are in bed with the Germans, just like with most other Western states,” the German magazine quotes Snowden as saying, adding that the NSA’s has a Foreign Affairs Directorate which is responsible for cooperation with other countries.

Read moreSnowden: NSA Is ‘In Bed With The Germans’

BND Files: Germany And US Knew Where Adolf Eichmann – The Logistical Mastermind of The Nazi Holocaust – Was Hiding

Related info:

Declassified Files Reveal How The CIA Protected Nazi Murderers

Swedish Royal Family Hit By New Scandal Exposing The Hidden Nazi Past Of The Queen’s Father

Prof. Antony Sutton: Wall Street & The Rise of Hitler

How Bush’s grandfather, Prescott Bush, helped Hitler’s rise to power


American and German intelligences services knew where Adolf Eichmann – the logistical mastermind of the Nazi Holocaust – was hiding almost a decade before he was kidnapped and brought to trial, documents being released in Munich show.


Adolph Eichmann during his trial in 1961


Critics believe the inaction on the part of both countries was to protect both German officials and pro-Nazi clergy in the Vatican who helped him escape.

The newspaper Bild reported on Saturday that it had gained access to some of the files of the BND intelligence service showing it knew where Eichmann was hiding under an alias in Argentina as early as 1952.

It was not until 1960 that an Israeli Mossad commando squad kidnapped him and flew him to Israel to stand trial for his war crimes. Eichmann was hanged in Israel in 1962.

“SS Colonel Eichmann is not to be found in Egypt but is residing in Argentina under the fake name Clemens. E’s address is known to the editor of the German newspaper Der Weg in Argentina,” it says on an index card dated 1952 and reproduced in Bild. The BND also told America about Eichmann’s whereabouts in 1958.

Bild said it had forced the release of the documents following a recent court case in which the BND was ordered to release some information.

Read moreBND Files: Germany And US Knew Where Adolf Eichmann – The Logistical Mastermind of The Nazi Holocaust – Was Hiding

US Must Stop Spying on WikiLeaks

wikileaks_001

Over the last few years, WikiLeaks has been the subject of hostile acts by security organizations. In the developing world, these range from the appalling assassination of two related human rights lawyers in Nairobi last March (an armed attack on my compound there in 2007 is still unattributed) to an unsuccessful mass attack by Chinese computers on our servers in Stockholm, after we published photos of murders in Tibet.

In the West this has ranged from the overt, the head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, threatening to prosecute us unless we removed a report on CIA activity in Kosovo, to the covert, to an ambush by a “James Bond” character in a Luxembourg car park, an event that ended with a mere “we think it would be in your interest to…”.

Developing world violence aside, we’ve become used to the level of security service interest in us and have established procedures to ignore that interest.

But the increase in surveillance activities this last month, in a time when we are barely publishing due to fundraising, are excessive. Some of the new interest is related to a film exposing a U.S. massacre we will release at the U.S. National Press Club on April 5.

The spying includes attempted covert following, photographing, filming and the overt detention & questioning of a WikiLeaks’ volunteer in Iceland on Monday night.

I, and others were in Iceland to advise Icelandic parliamentarians on the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, a new package of laws designed to protect investigative journalists and internet services from spying and censorship. As such, the spying has an extra poignancy.

The possible triggers:

  • our ongoing work on a classified film revealing civilian casualties occurring under the command of the U.S, general, David Petraeus.
  • our release of a classified 32 page US intelligence report on how to fatally marginalize WikiLeaks (expose our sources, destroy our reputation for integrity, hack us).
  • our release of a classified cable from the U.S. Embassy in Reykjavik reporting on contact between the U.S. and the U.K. over billions of euros in claimed loan guarantees.
  • pending releases related to the collapse of the Icelandic banks and Icelandic “oligarchs”.

We have discovered half a dozen attempts at covert surveillance in Reykjavik both by native English speakers and Icelanders. On the occasions where these individuals were approached, they ran away. One had marked police equipment and the license plates for another suspicious vehicle track back to the Icelandic private VIP bodyguard firm Terr. What does that mean? We don’t know. But as you will see, other events are clear.

Read moreUS Must Stop Spying on WikiLeaks

Germany: BND denies report on Iran bomb timing; Iran not be able to produce an atomic bomb for years

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s foreign intelligence agency BND denied a report in a magazine on Wednesday that its experts believe Iran is capable of producing and testing an atomic bomb within six months.

The report, in German weekly Stern, cited BND experts as saying Iran had mastered the enrichment technology necessary to make a bomb and had enough centrifuges to make weaponised uranium.

It quoted one expert at the agency as saying: “If they wanted to, they could detonate an atomic bomb in half a year’s time.”

But a BND spokesman said the article did not reflect the view of the agency, which is that Iran would not be able to produce an atomic bomb for years.

“We are talking about several years not several months,” the spokesman said.

Read moreGermany: BND denies report on Iran bomb timing; Iran not be able to produce an atomic bomb for years

German intel head threatens whistleblower site

The BND is just a subunit of the CIA.



Der Präsident des Bundesnachrichtendienstes (BND), Ernst Uhrlau

In the latest twist in a scandal involving the presence of the German intelligence service or Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) in the Balkan nation of Kosovo, the head of the BND has ordered whistleblower website Wikileaks to remove all BND-related files under threat of “immediate prosecution.”

Wikileaks has responded with a press release noting that the demands have no legal force outside Germany, so the order “must be assumed to be an attempt to engage Wikileaks via its German component — or does Mr. Uhrlau suggest it is now BND policy to kidnap foreign journalists and try them before German courts?”

According to Wikileaks, “The threats, made by BND President Ernst Uhrlau, were triggered by the Wikileaks publication of an article by Tom Burghardt, a US journalist, on the BND’s bungled Kosovo operation, together with a classified BND dossier on senior Kosovo figures from 2005 — both of which were specifically named by Mr. Uhrlau.”

The Kosovo scandal began on November 19, when three Germans were arrested in Kosovo’s capital of Pristina on suspicion of throwing explosives at the European Union office. The men, who said they were not behind the incident but were merely observing the crime scene, were identied by the German paper Spiegel as BND agents.

Read moreGerman intel head threatens whistleblower site

Germans said to plan major surveillance centre

Berlin – Germany is planning to set up a new authority to combine its various eavesdropping operations in a purpose-built headquarters near Cologne, the news magazine Der Spiegel said Saturday.

The combined police and espionage centre would be modelled on the National Security Agency (NSA) in the United States or the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Britain.

The project was being pushed by the Interior Ministry, which oversees the police and domestic intelligence, the magazine said in a story to appear in print on Monday.

Approached for comment by Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, a ministry spokesman a possible merger of telecommunications surveillance was at the “consideration” stage.

Including surveillance by the 16 German states, Germany had more than 75 surveillance offices at present, Der Spiegel said.

The interior ministry was keen to take away surveillance functions from the BND foreign intelligence service, and would argue that a new authority similar to the NSA could provide foreign and domestic eavesdropping from one spot.

A revamp was needed because modern communications were mainly digital and used sophisticated new encryption methods, creating a risk that police and intelligence services would be unable to crack the codes, according to Der Spiegel.

Source: DPA