German government faces legal action over NSA spying

The German government and the German Federal Intelligence Service are facing legal action because they allegedly aided the US National Security Agency (NSA) data collection program.

"We will send the legal action to the authorities [February 3]," said Constanze Kurz, a German computer scientist and spokeswoman for the Chaos Computer Club (CCC). "There are several persons as well as organizations which are suing our government and other named persons in charge," she said, adding that one of them is the International League for Human Rights, a German section of the International Federation for Human Rights. The complainants will bring charges over the alleged involvement of the German government in the NSA spying programs, she said. "That is one reason," she said, adding that the action was also started "because they did not even try to stop them from tapping into phones, hacking and spying on computers and collecting massive amounts of data although we have clearly laws that forbid foreign espionage." Kurz said the legal complaint will comprise more than 50 pages, and will be published soon.