Electronical & Electrical Equipment messages and telecommunications through Internet from Greece is monitored by the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND), according to documents available to "NEON".
The surveillance, as shown in a document filed during a legal dispute between a German lawyer and the BND, is generally carried out on the grounds of "international terrorism", but does not specify the size and extent of the surveillance at foreign targets. Lawyer Nico Harting sued the BND because he considered that his communication via e-mail with his foreign clients could be the target of the German secret services, while he claimed that the service had no right to monitor him as a German citizen.
Greece is also mentioned in the list of communications of the monitored countries. This list of German secret services was attached to other court documents and is entitled "Telecommunications-relations". In addition to Greece, the list also includes 195 countries and locations, whose communications he is said to have been monitoring since April 2010.
These documents were made available to the newspaper from a source in Germany in the context of mass-data surveys worldwide. It appears that, in addition to the 111 action of US and British intelligence services, German intelligence services have been actively involved in the massive surveillance of internet users.
A study last year by the European Parliament's Directorate-General for Home Affairs on European Citizens' Rights states that the German BND operates "a service that can be connected directly to digital hubs through which most foreign communications flow. ”. Under German law, the German secret services are allowed to search for up to 20% of communications that have "foreign elements" with certain keywords for the purpose of fighting terrorism or protecting the Constitution. Of course, they are only allowed to do this on German soil.
The study of the European Parliament states that the largest communications node in Germany is DE-CIX in Frankfurt. In a Spiegel report, cited in the study, it is reported that German intelligence agencies have set up special offices and facilities in this location to divert incoming data traffic, copy and transfer the data for further analysis to the BND headquarters in Pulah near Munich.
Greek companies
From research of "NEON" shows that three telecommunications companies operating in Greece are among the more than 550 member-clients of DE-CIX: Forthnet, OTEGlobe, and the Cypriot CYTA, which is also active in our country.
The first from Greece that came to an agreement with DE-CIX was OTEGlobe in the middle of the last decade. From the documents submitted by BND to the court, it is not known whether the screening was carried out by 2005 signed the relevant agreement between the Greek company and the German telecommunication hub - however it is clear that the secret services have such activities since April 2010 and after.
About a year later, in May of 2011, Forthnet announces its collaboration with DE-CIX. as mentioned in the press release, the German sub-comma then provided an Internet connection to more than 45 countries. Cypriot CYT has reached an agreement with DE-CIX just a few months ago in April of 2014.
According to the report, only Forthnet answered questions from the newspaper to the three companies about the measures they are taking to ensure telecommunications confidentiality. "Forthnet, fully adopting the mandates of the Greek legislation and the regulatory framework for ensuring the confidentiality of communications, takes all the necessary technical and organizational measures for the operation of its network for the security of moving data", it is pointed out, among other things.
In addition to the 3 companies of purely Greek interest, DE-CIX also cooperates with internet giants, information technologyand telecommunications that provide their services to Greek citizens as well. Facebook, and twitter, Microsoft, Verisign, Yahoo!, Amazon, the LinkedIn, Ebay n Deutsche Telecom and others.
