Germany has dissolved a fifty-years-old surveillance pact with the United States and Britain in response to a “debate about protecting personal privacy” in the country, which was sparked by revelations of the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The agreement that dated back to the late 1960s gave the US, Britain and France the right to request German authorities carry out surveillance operations so as to protect their troops stationed within the country. “The cancellation of the administrative agreements, which we have pushed for in recent weeks, is a necessary and proper consequence of the recent debate about protecting personal privacy,” Germany’s Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said in a statement on Friday. Germany was currently in talks with France to cancel its part of the agreement as well, a German official told AP on condition of anonymity. Following Snowden’s leaks, which disclosed the span of the NSA surveillance program and revealed that Germany is the most spied on EU country by the US, there has been a heated nationwide debate on whether the alleged massive privacy breach of German citizens should have been allowed.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Aug 2013 13:12:49 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015