Germany: Journalists, enemies of the state in the EU?
01 March 2006
I am personally, deeply disappointed. I only carried out my job, I did not commit a criminal act. But the [secret service] spied on me, had me under observation and exploited me like an enemy of the state - Josef Hufelschulte, Focus journalist and victim of BND spying activities
In 2005, the public learnt that Germany's foreign intelligence service (
Bundesnachrichtendienst - BND) was spying on journalists to ascertain the identity of their sources. It has now been revealed that far from being an isolated incident, or representing the act of a few over-zealous state guardians acting without the knowledge of their superiors as was claimed until recently, the practice of following journalists, tapping their phones and recruiting others as informants, is a regular BND activity. An unpublished report by a former High Court judge, submitted to the parliamentary committee overseeing BND activities, has confirmed the extent of this blatant violation of press freedom and has triggered another scandal in government, journalist and civil liberties circles (see
Statewatch Vol. 15 no 6 & Vol. 16 no 1). However, because journalists have been willing helpers in this information market place, the revelation has also called into question journalistic ethics in Germany.
The latest revelations come in a detailed, 170-page report on BND surveillance operations, spanning the early 1980s to the present. The report was written by former High Court judge Gerhard Schäfer, who repeatedly describes the extent of BND spying activities as "clearly unlawful". Not only did he reveal that surveillance operations on journalists were more numerous than had admitted by the BND, but also that the BND recruited fellow journalists to spy on their colleagues. The secret report, the contents of which were partially disclosed by the
Süddeutsche Zeitung on 12 May, was commissioned by the Parliamentary Control Commission (
Parlamentarisches Kontrollgremium - PKG) and presented on 11 May.
The PKG had demanded a special investigation into allegations made last year, following evidence that the BND had informants in press circles and had placed journalists under observation. These claims become impossible to ignore when, last November, raids on journalists' houses were followed by a BND whistleblower admitting he had been observing Erich Schmidt-Eenboom (who wrote two books on the BND) on order from the BND (see
Statewatch vol 16 no 1). Then it was thought that these activities ended in the late 1990s and that the BND acted without informing the government, or even its president, of the activities. The information contained in the Schäfer report, which is based on interviews with former BND presidents, journalists and government representatives, reveals that this is unlikely. It shows that journalists were spied upon until as late as December last year.
From Schäfer's report, it appears that at least five journalists were spied on by their colleagues within the last decade and that the informants sold this information to the BND. The papers affected are
Der Spiegel, Focus, Stern and Süddeutsche Zeitung; the reason given for the surveillance was the need to find leaks within the ranks of the BND. According to the
Süddeutsche Zeitung (15.5.06):
The service wanted to know everything: why the journalist Hans Leyendecker left the news magazine Der Spiegel in 1997 and why he started working with the Süddeutsche Zeitung. What his new salary was. Which stories Spiegel journalists Georg Mascolo and Günther Latsch were working on. Who the secret service employees were that were in contact with Stern journalist Karl-Günther Bartsch, who was researching the Elf-Aquitaine affair [French oil company involved in large-scale fraud]. Who the sources were that provided information to the then Stern editor and present SZ editor Wolfgang Krach. What Spiegel editor Stefan Aust was doing in his spare time [...]. T