Wikileaks to expose Merkel

The leaked documents reveal cooperation between the German and US spy agencies, as well as the relationship between Germany’s Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) and America’s National Security Agency (NSA).

The speaker of the German Parliament meanwhile, is planning to approve a criminal investigation into the leak of confidential documents relating to US intelligence activities in the country.

The documents, posted online Thursday by WikiLeaks, came from a parliamentary committee’s inquiry into the relationship between German authorities and the National Security Agency. The inquiry was launched a year after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed details of secret U.S. eavesdropping programs in 2013.

Parliamentary officials Friday confirmed German media reports that Speaker Norbert Lammert would give prosecutors permission to investigate the leak of some 90 gigabytes of data.

Commenting on the latest release of classified papers, Assange said they could derail Germany’s ascendancy within the EU.

“Germany can not take a leadership role within the EU if it’s own parliamentary processes are subservient to the wishes of a non EU state.”

WikiLeaks’ latest statement added: “Whilst a number of facts have already come to light as a result of the inquiry including WikiLeaks’ publication of inquiry transcripts last year this substantial new collection of primary source documents provides significant new evidence.

“The collection contains early agreements between the BND and the NSA and internal processes at the BND, but also more recent details on the close collaboration between the two agencies.

“For example, one document from the BND states that a BND employee will be tasked to use and write software for XKeyscore, an NSA system for searching and analysing data collected through mass surveillance.

“A number of the documents show how intelligence agencies find ways to work around their own government.”