[Cryptography] German investigation says the NSA probably didn't tap Merkel's phone after all

[Caspar Bowden (lists)]

On 04/11/15 19:42, John Denker wrote:
> Long, thoughtful article by Max Fisher:
>   http://www.vox.com/2014/12/12/7381539/merkel-phone-tapped-nsa

Fisher's story is slippery - here's what Spiegel said in Dec 2014
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/nsa-german-federal-prosecutor-seeks-to-discredit-spiegel-reporting-a-1008262.html

Fisher's story is headlined "NSA probably didn't tap Merkel's phone
after all", but this is diluted in the text to "found no evidence that
the tapping ever occurred
<http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0JP1QG20141211?irpc=932>"
which is what Range has been saying since June 2014. Der Spiegel as
above said :

  * On Oct. 17, 2013, SPIEGEL Berlin bureau chief Nikolaus Blome and
    reporter Jörg Schindler met with Steffen Seibert, Merkel's official
    spokesman. They presented him with a letter detailing the
    information obtained about spying on Merkel's mobile phone. The two
    made clear to Seibert that the paper was a copy of the details from
    an NSA database entry SPIEGEL had viewed. Seibert also understood it
    to be such.

One might speculate that if the original was an electronic document, it
would be wise for source protection not to surrender the electonic data.

>> When the story first broke in October 2013, President Obama
>> personally called Merkel to tell her it wasn't true. 

Which is also slippery - the link Fisher provides says no such thing
(that it was not true)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/10/23/obamas-phone-call-with-angela-merkel-sounds-like-it-was-horribly-awkward/

>> It was widely
>> assumed that Obama was lying; it now appears, based on Germany's own
>> investigation, that he may have been telling the truth.

Caspar Bowden
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