Germany spied on White House

Germany's intelligence agency spied on high-profile U.S. targets, including the White House, the State Department and the military for nearly a decade, Spiegel has reported.

Relevant documents are available at the publication Der Spiegel.

Other agencies monitored during the end of Bill Clinton administration and nearly the entirety of George W. Bush's term in office were the State and Treasury departments, NASA, US Air Force, Marine Corps, and a number of other defence-related departments.

This time, Spiegel reports that the German government is likely to find itself in hot water as its BND intelligence service wiretapped numerous targets in the U.S. between 1998 and 2006, according to the documents accessed by the magazine.

The BND refused to comment on the data.

Hundreds of foreign embassies as well as worldwide organisation like the global Monetary Fund were not spared, weekly magazine Spiegel said.

The German magazine reported that from a domestic standpoint, Merkel's administration, the chancellor's conservative Christian Democratic Union party and the center-left Social Democrats frequently regurgitate BND's refrain that Germany has never spied on the U.S. and that any data collection would fall under "coincidental capture".

"The question of who the BND is allowed to monitor and who it is not, will not only be subject to more stringent rules in future, but also to very extensive control", he told Spiegel. "It's a waste of effort and energy".

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was famously outraged in 2013 when she heard that the US had allegedly bugged her phone, telling then-President Barack Obama: "Spying between friends, that's just not done".

German spooks have been accused of spying on the White House four years after Angela Merkel reacted furiously to revelations USA agents had tapped her phone.

Merkel famously said "spying among friends is not on".