Report: U.S. Tracked Merkel’s Cell Phone Since 2002

U.S. President Barack Obama, left, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, right, answer questions during a news conference in Dresden, Germany, Friday, June 5, 2009.
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The United States may have monitored German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone for over ten years, German magazine Der Spiegel reported Saturday. 

Der Speigel reported that Merkel’s mobile phone was listed by the NSA’s Special Collection Service (SCS) since 2002, and it was still on the list weeks before President Barack Obama visited Berlin in June, according to Reuters.

The magazine cited an SCS document that said the NSA had a “not legally registered spying branch” in the U.S. embassy in Berlin, where NSA and CIA staff were able to monitor communications.

The report noted Obama told Merkel he would have stopped the surveillance had he known about it, according to Reuters.

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