Spying on journalists

last updated 8 January 2015

Berlin

For years, Germany’s foreign intelligence service has been keeping files on journalists, a government report revealed. The BND, Germany’s version of the CIA, paid certain journalists to spy on their colleagues and find sources of leaks, the report said. The program started in the 1980s because of leaks about ineptitude in the BND itself. Some of the spies worked at Germany’s most prestigious publications, including the venerable magazine Der Spiegel. Germany’s parliament was already investigating the BND over allegations that two German spies in Baghdad gave information to the U.S. before the Iraq war; it will now also look at the new charges. “It is an incredible scandal,” said Hubert Burda, president of an association of newsmagazines. The government ordered the BND to halt the program.