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30 Jan, 2014

Angela Merkel: US surveillance “violates trust, spreads mistrust” – theguardian.com

Angela Merkel has used the first, agenda-setting speech of her third term in office to criticise America’s uncompromising defence of its surveillance activities.

In a speech otherwise typically short of strong emotion or rhetorical flourishes, the German chancellor found relatively strong words on NSA surveillance, two days before the US secretary of state, John Kerry, is due to visit Berlin.

“A programme in which the end justifies all means, in which everything that is technically possible is then acted out, violates trust and spreads mistrust,” she said. “In the end, it produces not more but less security.”

Read the rest: Angela Merkel warns US over surveillance in first speech of third term | World news | theguardian.com.