WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — On April 23, German media reported that the BND has allegedly been spying on European targets upon requests from the NSA.
Some of the IP addresses belonged to European politicians and companies, including the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company.
Drake said the NSA-BND relationship has been extraordinary close for years, and expanded significantly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.
“Here you have the BND in total violation of the German Constitution, but it doesn’t matter [to them],” Drake said. “If there is no accountability, then they are not incentivized to stop.”
The former NSA executive added that the agencies operate under the mantel of mass security, and explain mass spying on regular people and politicians by the greater good.
Drake argued that US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel might have chosen not to know about the details of the agencies’ programs.
“By not knowing, they can claim plausible deniability, if something comes out or becomes a scandal,” he went on.
Drake said collecting and possessing such secret information has given the intelligence agencies extraordinary power.
“This really is a danger to Democracy to have this kind of power in the hands of security services, who can hold politicians and the government hostage in terms ‘we know things that you don’t even know about’,” Drake added.
The former NSA executive noted that there are special agreements in place between the US intelligence agency and security services of other European countries, including France, Norway and Sweden.
Cybersecurity concerns in the United States and Germany have been heightened since the 2013 spying scandal when former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the US intelligence community was eavesdropping on European politicians and the general public.
