Merkel and the NSA

On 11/08/2013 German  Chief of Staff of the German Chancellery Ronald Pofalla declared, the allegations that the NSA and British intelligence spy on innocent German citizens ​​were "off the table".After it became apparent that even her own cell phone is also affected by the espionage, Merkel ("Mom") finally acted and told Obama that "she unmistakably disapproves of and views as completely unacceptable such practices, if the indications are authenticated," her spokesman Steffen Seifert said. "This would be a serious breach of confidence. Such practices have to be halted immediately."

Possibly these two statements are not even contradictory: Pofalla had been referring to innocent German citizens :-)In any case, it is good to know that the German government is able to distinguish between sensitive data and the data of its citizens.Somehow, I prefer the intelligence services to our government : they don't know any second-class citizens, everyone gets the same fair treatment.

It's probably needless to say that of course the German equivalent (as close as it gets) to the NSA, the Bundesnachrichtendienst, is spying on German citizens. This is OK, because they have been asked by the German government to do this, and they would never ever dream about spying on the hand that feeds it.
Rumor has it, by the way, that the Bundesnachrichtendienst is the only German body that the NSA does not spy on; simply because no valuable information is expected  there.