Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Privacy

German NSA Panel’s Chairman Quits in Spat Over Snowden

BERLIN – The chairman of a new German parliamentary panel probing mass surveillance by the NSA abruptly quit on Wednesday, rejecting opposition demands that the body question fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden.

BERLIN – The chairman of a new German parliamentary panel probing mass surveillance by the NSA abruptly quit on Wednesday, rejecting opposition demands that the body question fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden.

Lawmakers from the opposition Greens and far-left Linke parties had demanded that the committee seek testimony from Snowden, the former contractor with the US National Security Agency (NSA) now living in Moscow.

However, its conservative chairman Clemens Binninger rejected the idea and unexpectedly quit his post less than a week after the body was established, claiming the different parties were unable to work constructively together.

Binninger accused the left-leaning opposition members of a “one-sided fixation” with Snowden and said “a committee of inquiry should not primarily serve to help political parties score points”.

He also said in a statement that he “remains sceptical that Snowden, given his own public statements, can be of any help to us as a witness”.

The Linke party’s lawmaker Andre Hahn called Binninger’s reasoning absurd and said “it goes without saying that the opposition wants to hear Snowden”, speaking to the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung daily.

Snowden, regarded as a traitor by the administration of US President Barack Obama, has spoken via video link on several occasions to other bodies, including to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg this week.

The eight-member German committee of inquiry was set up last Thursday to assess the extent of US spying, especially by the NSA, on German citizens and politicians, and whether German intelligence had knowledge of, or aided, its activities.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

Binninger is set to be replaced by lawmaker Patrick Sensburg, also of the Christian Democrats party of Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose mobile phone was allegedly surveilled by the NSA.

Green party veteran lawmaker Hans-Christian Stroebele, who has visited Snowden in Moscow, has demanded that the fugitive be allowed to enter Germany as a protected witness.

“He wants to testify here, and he would like to stay here,” Stroebele said on ARD public television. “The government must create the conditions to allow him to make his statement.”

Written By

AFP 2023

Click to comment

Trending

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Join the session as we discuss the challenges and best practices for cybersecurity leaders managing cloud identities.

Register

SecurityWeek’s Ransomware Resilience and Recovery Summit helps businesses to plan, prepare, and recover from a ransomware incident.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Artificial Intelligence

Two of humanity’s greatest drivers, greed and curiosity, will push AI development forward. Our only hope is that we can control it.

Cybercrime

Daniel Kelley was just 18 years old when he was arrested and charged on thirty counts – most infamously for the 2015 hack of...

Cybercrime

No one combatting cybercrime knows everything, but everyone in the battle has some intelligence to contribute to the larger knowledge base.

Cybercrime

The FBI dismantled the network of the prolific Hive ransomware gang and seized infrastructure in Los Angeles that was used for the operation.

Cybersecurity Funding

Los Gatos, Calif-based data protection and privacy firm Titaniam has raised $6 million seed funding from Refinery Ventures, with participation from Fusion Fund, Shasta...

Ransomware

The Hive ransomware website has been seized as part of an operation that involved law enforcement in 10 countries.

Privacy

Many in the United States see TikTok, the highly popular video-sharing app owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, as a threat to national security.The following is...

Privacy

Employees of Chinese tech giant ByteDance improperly accessed data from social media platform TikTok to track journalists in a bid to identify the source...