Photo Gallery The Cornwall Lists
Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham. For years, the signals intelligence agency has targed European, German and Israeli politicians for surveillance.
British Prime Minister David Cameron appears next to German Chancellor Angela Merkel during a meeting in London in 2012. If it is confirmed that the British targeted the phones of German government officials and EU Commissioner Joaquin Almunia, Cameron will have a problem.
Satellite dishes at GCHQ's outpost at Bude, close to where the trans-Atlantic fiber-optic cables come ashore in Cornwall. From Bude and other GCHQ sites, the agency appears to be systematically monitoring country-to-country telephone calls made through satellite connections.
Berlin's government quarter, as seen from the Brandenburg Gate: One of GCHQ's lists of targets leads directly to the German capital -- "49-30-180 German Government Network." Those numbers include the country code for Germany, the area code for Berlin and the prefix for the Federal Government Information Network, to which government ministries in Berlin are connected. Any agency that would include that prefix for German government numbers must have considerable interest in political developments in Berlin.
European leaders have been angered by reports that American and British intelligence agencies actively sought to spy on top leaders. SPIEGEL reported in October that the National Security Agency in the United States spied on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cell phone.
The lists of politicians targeted could create fresh political tensions all over Europe. Just last week, German Chief Federal Prosecutor Harald Range (pictured here) said that from his office's perspective, there is no evidence that the NSA or British intelligence has systematically monitored German telephone and Internet traffic.
European Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia even has his own code in the GCHQ's target database. From an intelligence perspective, interest in him is significant -- at least in terms of industrial espionage.
