The BND scandal started earlier this year with US media reports on a possible involvement of German intelligence officials in the Iraq war. This led to a parliamentary investigation which has just begun its work last week.

Now, new revelations about the BND's use of journalists to determine leaks within the agency have emerged. Bloomberg.com:

The daily newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung on May 12 cited Gerhard Schaefer, the Federal Court of Justice's former chief judge, as saying that the BND regularly spied on journalists and even pressed reporters to inform on their colleagues' work. Schaefer's findings appeared in a 170-page report that he submitted to a cross-party panel of lawmakers which meets in private to help oversee the intelligence services' activities.

More from the Deutsche Welle:

Some of Germany's most prestigious news organizations including the weekly Der Spiegel have admitted in the wake of the affair that some of their staff worked for the BND and provided information on colleagues from other publications as recently as last year. The BND had also apparently placed several journalists under surveillance for some years in order to find out the source of leaks from the BND to the press.

Former BND chief Volker Foertsch has also admitted that journalists had sometimes been used as informers.

"The aim of the contacts was to prevent publication of prejudicial articles and find out where the journalists were getting their information from inside the BND," he was quoted by another newspaper, the Berliner Zeitung, as saying.

That the spying on journalists hasn't paid off is quite apparent. Afterall, the confidential report has been leaked to the media.

After these revelations Chancellor Angela Merkel has today decided to become proactive. Der Spiegel:

The government responded to the affair on Monday by banning the BND from using journalists as sources from now on. "The Chancellery today gave the instruction that no journalists must be run as sources in operations to protect itself," said government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm.

Freedom of the press was so important that it outweighed the BND's interests in protecting itself, said Wilhelm. The announcement marked a change in the intelligences services' code of conduct which had until now stated that any operational measures against journalists required official permission from the BND's leadership.

The basis for the current parliamentary investigation on the BND's activities in Iraq is very shaky. Obviously, the government of Angela Merkel did not want to give it any further amunition, therefore today deciding to bar the BND from using journalists and the unequivocal statement on the importance on the freedom of the press.

It remains to be seen whether this strategy will work. However, it's definitely better than stonewalling. So, maybe Bush can learn something from his new friend.

All links:

Deutsche Welle: Germany Stops Journalist Spying in Wake of Scandal

Der Spiegel: Monitoring the Media - German Spy Agency Watched Journalists

Der Spiegel: The World from Berlin - Spying on the Fourth Estate

Bloomberg: German Government Bars BND From Using Journalists as Sources

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