A new revelation about the actions of the NSA were published today by the German newspaper Die Zeit. According to the documents published by the newspaper, German spies made a deal with the NSA to get their hands on an American software monitoring.
As part of the 2012 agreement between the United States' National Security Agency and the Federal Agency for the Protection of the Constitution (BFV), the Council agreed not to spy on Americans in exchange for access to the XKeyscore program, as first reported by Edward Snowden Two years ago.
The Germans also promised to share the information they gather using the US program "as much as possible."
According to the publication, XKeyscore was able to "recognize services such as Hotmail, Yahoo or Facebook." It was also able to detect usernames and passwords access.
Unlike the US National Security Agency, the BND and BFV were not allowed to use it application for mass surveillance. Instead, they targeted specific suspects who, because of the agreement they had with the US, were not supposed to be Americans.
The agreement with the US includes citizens, aliens who have a legal permanent residence in the US, groups and associations whose members are US citizens, or US legal entities.
Die Zeit reports that German secret services shared information with the NSA in return for technical support, potentially violating the fundamental rights of German citizens.
The newspaper also reports that the risk of such violations remains so far.
