Despite Germany’s strong reactions against U.S., after Snowden revealed US spying activities, it seems that German Intelligence Agency (BND) monitors emails and telecommunications through the Internet!

According to an article published by Greek newspaper “TA NEA” and based on documents available, Germans closely monitor communications through Internet, both in Greece and in other European countries.

This resulted from a document filed during a litigation between a German lawyer and BND: The intelligence agency monitors and records communications on “international terrorism” purposes. However, it is not clarified the extent of surveillance on foreign targets.

The lawyer sued BND because he considered that his communication with foreign customers via e-mail might be a target of the German Intelligence Agency and supported that the service was not allowed to monitor him since he is a German citizen.

196 countries are included in the list of the countries monitored by the German Intelligence Agency.

According to “TA NEA” three telecommunication companies operating in Greece are among the 550 members-customers of DE-CIX, the largest communication node in Germany, where according to Spiegel, German intelligence agency has established its surveillance network.
These companies are Forthnet, OTEGlobe, and Cyprus CYTA.

Apart from these 3 companies, DE-CIX also collaborates with big internet, computing and telecommunications companies that provide their services to Greek citizen, such as Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Verisign, Yahoo!, Amazon, LinkedIn, Ebay, Deutsche Telecom.