Secretary of the State Council of Defense, The following is a response to the Council of Defense agreeing to serve as a detective for the Navy. These detectives would be stationed in every town across the State, in order to swiftly investigate cases while blending into the community to avoid alerting the saboteur or German spy of possible detection. These men would investigate reported cases of disloyalty or suspicion of potential threats that local law enforcement or the Council of Defense received, but they will answer to a military authority. While ideally these individuals would have backgrounds in law enforcement detective work, discretion and secrecy were more valuable than experience. The intent was to select detectives from local police departments to serve and answer to the Navy, as espionage is a military matter. This is one of many letters sent from the Connecticut State Council of Defense to local branches regarding the search for detectives to work for the Navy to investigate cases of disloyalty. We will then submit this name to the Department for their information. I wish to have the name, home address and telephone, business address and bussness telephone of the person. Will you give this your immediate attention and let me hear from you at the earliest possible moment? The principle requirements for this service are discretion and secrecy. I am writing to inquire, therefore, if you would be willing to serve if requested to do so by the Navy Department in your town and if not, will you send me the name of someone who will agree to do so. It seems to me that the work for the Council and for the Navy Department, while of an analogous nature, does not conflict. They desire to have a man, when the occasion arises, to run down a rumor or investigate suspicious circumstances or secure information for them. We have received a request from the Navy Department to furnish them with the names of men in some of the towns of the State whom they might wish to use for exactly this same purpose. The magazine said Germany's other main counter-espionage agency, the joint armed forces intelligence service MAD, was also reviewing whether it, too, should subject allies' intelligence operations to increased scrutiny.Sometime ago you received from us Town Bulletin #3 requesting you report to the Council instances of disloyalty or utterances of a seditious or traitorous nature, etc. Spiegel quoted Clemens Binninger from Merkel's Christian Democrats and chairman of the parliamentary oversight committee on intelligence as saying, "We need to cease the differentiation and treat them all the same way." Germany already closely monitors intelligence operations by China, Russia and North Korea, but has in the past largely exempted those of its own allies from any surveillance.
Merkel said in a podcast on Saturday that she would address privacy issues this week on a visit to Paris, with one aim being the establishment of secure European communication networks independent of the US. Washington has also been reluctant to agree to a blanket no-mutual-spying pact sought by Berlin. Since the revelations by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, Germany has voiced dissatisfaction with Washington and London's lack of readiness to emulate its strict privacy regulations. Spiegel said Merkel's office, the Interior Minstry and Foreign Ministry would all have to agree to give the green light to the enhanced counter-intelligence measures. Maassen said in November that Germany needed to "adjust counter-espionage and take a 360-degree view." The head of the German domestic intelligence service, the BfV (headquarters shown above), Hans-Georg Maassen, had already suggested last year that Germany might be considering enlarging its counter-espionage operations in light of the revelations. The alleged plans come in the wake of revelations since June that the US National Security Agency (NSA) had carried out massive electronic surveillance in Germany, including monitoring a non-government mobile phone used by Chancellor Angela Merkel. The operations would include the tracking of US agents operating under diplomatic cover on German soil, the report said. Germany is debating plans to expand its counter-espionage personnel and conduct "foundational monitoring" of the embassies of such nations as the United States and Britain, Spiegel said in its report on Sunday.
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