Merkel phone-tapping story a hoax?

[Valin]

Hot Air:

Ed Morrissey

December 12, 2014

 

Did the Snowden release fool people into thinking that the NSA had tapped German chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone when it hadn’t? German prosecutors aren’t calling it a hoax — at least, not yet — but they are now convinced that the document that came from the Snowden cache at the center of the allegation is “not an authentic surveillance order“:

 

(Snip)

 

Range’s findings on the Snowden document raises a number of questions, most of which will probably never be answered to anyone’s satisfaction. Let’s assume for a moment that the Snowden document was legitimate, as Snowden claimed, retrieved with a lot of other data that the US has grudgingly if passively verified as legit after Snowden absconded with it. How did Range come to the conclusion that it wasn’t a legitimate order? Did the NSA and/or the US pressure him into discrediting the document? Did the Merkel government do so in order to quell its opposition on the Left? The latter seems unlikely, as Merkel’s opposition isn’t that big of a threat, or at least not because of the Snowden story. The US certainly would have plenty of motive to bury this, but Germany doesn’t have a lot of incentive to play along, especially since their demand for a “no-spy” agreement got rebuffed since the allegation arose.

 

Now let’s hypothesize that Range is correct and that this isn’t an authentic order (which still raises the question of how exactly Range made that determination). If this allegation turned out to be a hoax, what about the allegation made at the same time about NSA surveillance of Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff? What other documents released from the Snowden cache via The Guardian and other media outlets may not be legitimate? Some of it certainly was, given the reaction to the revelations by the NSA, Congress, and the Obama administration, but how much? And if it’s not legitimate, how did Snowden get it in the first place? Was it something he made up, or was it something the NSA hid as part of an elaborate mole hunt?

 

Fascinating questions all, but don’t expect to find any answers any time soon, if at all.

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

Why is Edward Snowden still breathing?