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Germany calls off probe into whether the NSA spied on Angela Merkel
We might never know if the NSA truly spied on German chancellor Angela Merkel. And if the agency did, the details might never come to light, because her government has decided to stop investigating whether Merkel was actually a target. The country's chief federal prosecutor Harald Range has announced in a German-language statement that investigators failed to find sufficient evidence that would hold up in court. Apparently, none of the documents Edward Snowden released contained concrete proof that Merkel's phone was tapped. Range also said that "vague remarks from US officials about US intelligence surveillance of the chancellor's cellphone -- i.e. 'not any more' -- are insufficient evidence."
NSA may have spied on 122 foreign leaders
We've known for a while that the NSA has spied on German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other international leaders, but it now looks like that surveillance was just the tip of the iceberg. Der Spiegel and The Intercept have published an Edward Snowden leak revealing that the NSA snooped on as many as 122 foreign heads of state in 2009, ranging from Merkel to Ukranian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. A custom search system, Nymrod, helped the US agency both locate transcripts of those leaders' communications as well as secret reports. The National Security Council tells The Intercept that President Obama's administration hasn't tracked Merkel and doesn't plan to start, but it also didn't deny that the German leader had once been under close watch.
