U.S. spyware found on thumb drive of Angela Merkel's top aide

U.S. spyware found on thumb drive of Angela Merkel's top aide
(Image credit: iStock)

Following the revelation from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden that German Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone was under American surveillance (which Obama himself may or may not have approved in advance), the president promised that mass spying on the German people — and monitoring of the chancellor's office — would cease.

Calling into question that promise, American spyware was reportedly found recently on a USB drive belonging to a top Merkel aide. The drive, which only contained an in-progress speech and no sensitive information, was infected with an NSA-developed virus called Regin which is built to steal information from governments and other high-security institutions.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.