US bugged Merkel's phone from 2002 until 2013, report claims

The US has been spying on German Chancellor
Angela Merkel's mobile phone since 2002,
according to a report in Der Spiegel magazine.
The German publication claims to have seen secret
documents from the National Security Agency which
show Mrs Merkel's number on a list dating from 2002 -
before she became chancellor.
Her number was still on a surveillance list in 2013.
Meanwhile Washington has seen a protest against the
NSA's spying programme.
Several thousand protesters marched to the US Capitol
to demand a limit to the surveillance. Some of them
held banners in support of the fugitive former
contractor Edward Snowden, who revealed the extent
of the NSA's activities.
'No-spy deal'
The nature of the monitoring of Mrs Merkel's mobile
phone is not clear from the files, Der Spiegel says.
For example, it is possible that the chancellor's
conversations were recorded, or that her contacts were
simply assessed.
Germany is sending its top intelligence chiefs to
Washington in the coming week to "push forward" an
investigation into the spying allegations, which have
caused outrage in Germany.
On Friday, Germany and France said they want the US
to sign a no-spy deal by the end of the year.
As well as the bugging of Mrs Merkel's phone, there are
claims the NSA has monitored millions of telephone
calls made by German and French citizens.
In Washington demonstrators marched against the
NSA's surveillance
Details
The documents seen by Der Spiegel give further details
of the NSA's targeting of European governments.
A unit called Special Collection Services, based in the
US embassy in Pariser Platz in Berlin, was responsible
for monitoring communications in the German
capital's government quarter.
If the existence of listening stations in US embassies
were known, there would be "severe damage for the
US's relations with a foreign government," the
documents said.
Similar units were based in around 80 locations
worldwide, according to the documents seen by Der
Spiegel, 19 of them in European cities.
The US government had a second German spy base in
Frankfurt am Main, the magazine reports.
Mrs Merkel phoned the US president when she first
heard of the spying allegations on Wednesday.
President Barack Obama promised Mrs Merkel he knew
nothing of the alleged phone monitoring, the magazine
reports. He apologised to the German chancellor, it
said.
The scandal has caused the biggest diplomatic rift
between Germany and the US in living memory, reports
the BBC's Damien McGuinness in Berlin.
Mrs Merkel - an Americophile who was awarded the
US Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011 - is said
to be shocked that Washington may have engaged in
the sort of spying she had to endure growing up in
Communist East Germany.
The US embassy, near Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, was
used to monitor communications, the documents
suggest

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