Merkel’s Office Suggests Special Investigator See U.S. Spy List

(Reuters) Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office has proposed that a special investigator be appointed to inspect a list of targets that German intelligence tracked on behalf of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).

Critics have accused Merkel’s staff of giving the German BND foreign intelligence agency the green light to help the NSA spy on European firms and officials, triggering a scandal that has dented the chancellor’s popularity.

In a letter to the parliamentary committee investigating the affair, parts of which were seen by Reuters, the chancellery said the investigator’s mandate would be such that “an answer can follow, without disclosing concrete content from the list”.

Merkel has come under increasing pressure to divulge the list of targets, including the IP addresses of individual computers, in an affair that has strained relations between her conservatives and their Social Democrat coalition partners.

Read the full story at Reuters.