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on Fri Jul 4 11:00:32 2014, in response to EUEUEUEUEU Olog, posted by RockParkMan on Sat Nov 12 14:58:17 2011.
fiogf49gjkf0d BBC News
4 July 2014 Last updated at 10:16 ETNSA investigation: Germany arrests 'suspected US spy'An employee of Germany's intelligence agency has been arrested on suspicion of spying for the US, reports say.
The man is said to have been trying to gather details about a German parliamentary committee that is investigating claims of US espionage.
The US National Security Agency (NSA) was last year accused of bugging the phone of Chancellor Angela Merkel as part of a huge surveillance programme.
The NSA revelations put a strain on ties between Germany and the US.
US officials at the embassy in Berlin have declined to comment on the latest development.'Serious matter'German media say the man arrested this week is a 31-year-old employee of the federal intelligence agency, known as the BND.
The German federal prosecutor's office confirmed the man's arrest, but gave no other details.
A spokesman for Merkel said she had been informed of the arrest, as had the members of the nine-strong parliamentary committee investigating the activities of foreign intelligence agencies in Germany.
"The matter is serious; it is clear," spokesman Steffen Seibert told the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper,
Der Spiegel news magazine said the man was believed to have passed secret documents to a US contact in exchange for money.
However, one unnamed politician told Reuters news agency the suspect had offered his services to the US voluntarily.
"This was a man who had no direct contact with the investigative committee… He was not a top agent," the source said.
Germany is particularly sensitive to reports of espionage on its territory because many of its citizens from the formerly communist east of the country were spied upon by the Stasi secret police.
The scale of the NSA's global spy program was revealed in documents leaked last year by a former intelligence contractor, Edward Snowden.
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