German Justice Minister Seeks Explanation Over U.S. Spying Collaboration

The German Justice Minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, is seeking explanation from the country's foreign intelligence service (BND) after the agency confirmed that it passed on data to the U.S. National Security Agency, according to reports.

"If it is true that the BND made itself available as a tool for the NSA in the mass gathering of data, than something urgently needs to be done," said Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, in an interview with the Munchner Merkur newspaper.

The demand comes after Germany announced the cancellation of a spy pact with the United States and the United Kingdom in response to the American whistleblower Edward Snowden's revelations about the U.S. National Security Agency's surveillance program of monitoring communications and movements of people.

Saying it acted in accordance with German law, the foreign intelligence service last week confirmed reports by the leading German magazine, the Spiegel, that the agency had provided around 500 pieces of metadata to U.S. intelligence groups.

Edward Snowden, who revealed the NSA surveillance program, was recently granted temporary asylum in Russia after spending more than a month in the transit zone of Moscow airport.

Washington has repeatedly warned Russia that its asylum offer to the American whistleblower could jeopardize relationships between the United States and Russia. The government is also considering a cancellation of President Obama's planned fall visit to Russia.

However, the Moscow government said that the asylum offer won't harm the relationship between the two countries.

"We are aware of the atmosphere being created in the U.S. over Snowden, but we didn't get any signals [indicating a possible cancellation of the visit] from American authorities," said Yuri Ushakov, an aide to the Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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