US to conduct smear campaign against Germany: Analyst
Press TV has interviewed Steven Kelley, a former NSA contractor in Los Angeles, about Germany’s foreign intelligence service (BND) being accused of spying on a long list of targets including friendly nations and agencies, such as the FBI, US arms companies, and UN Children’s Fund.
The following is a rough transcription of the interview.
Press TV: Should there be any surprise here, certainly quite a bit of hypocrisy to go around?
Kelley: Well certainly no surprise at all. Obviously the fact that they are even talking about it and pointing their fingers and acknowledging that Germany is doing somewhat the same thing that the NSA is doing, I think we all would expect that modern governments will try to duplicate these efforts domestically.
What is funny is the targets. Certainly the fact that they are doing this is the first issue but the targets they are looking at certainly is interesting and you can spend all kinds of time just looking at the significance of each one of those targets.
Press TV: And obviously when news came out that the US had been spying on German officials, especially Angela Merkel, there was a lot of anger from the German government’s part. Do you think that there will be such consequences on the part of these other nations who have been spied upon by the BND?
Kelley: Well that is a tough call. I think that this may be part of the smear campaign that the United States is trying to conduct as a result of Germany becoming friendly with Russia, naturally that certainly seems to be a part of it. Whether or not this is airing out of the laundry, so to speak, remains to be seen but as far as repercussions are concerned, I do not think so.
I think that this will pass and if anything, it could certainly be a distraction. I think people are most likely again to focus on the people that were being spied on and information will be released subsequently as a result of that.
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