X

Snowden accuses NSA of conducting industrial espionage

Former NSA contractor tells a German broadcaster that the US agency would collect intelligence from foreign companies that had no national defense value.

Steven Musil Night Editor / News
Steven Musil is the night news editor at CNET News. He's been hooked on tech since learning BASIC in the late '70s. When not cleaning up after his daughter and son, Steven can be found pedaling around the San Francisco Bay Area. Before joining CNET in 2000, Steven spent 10 years at various Bay Area newspapers.
Expertise I have more than 30 years' experience in journalism in the heart of the Silicon Valley.
See full bio
Steven Musil
2 min read
The National Security Agency's headquarters in Ft. Meade, Maryland, in an undated file photo.
The National Security Agency's headquarters in Ft. Meade, Maryland, in an undated file photo. NSA

The National Security Agency engages in industrial espionage, grabbing intelligence from foreign companies regardless of the information's value to national defense, Edward Snowden told a German TV network.

In text released to the media ahead of a broadcast Sunday, German public television broadcaster ARD quoted the former NSA contractor as citing German engineering firm Siemens as an example.

"There is no question that the US is engaged in economic spying," Snowden told ARD, according to a Deutsche Welle account of the interview. ''If there's information at Siemens that's beneficial to U.S. national interests -- even if it doesn't have anything to do with national security -- then they'll take that information nevertheless."

CNET has contacted the NSA for comment and will update this report when we learn more. In a statement earlier this month in response to a New York Times report that the agency had installed surveillance software on nearly 100,000 computers around the world, the agency denied supplying any obtained intelligence to US companies to give them a competitive edge.

"NSA's activities are focused and specifically deployed against -- and only against -- valid foreign intelligence targets in response to intelligence requirements," the NSA said in the statement to CNET. "In addition, we do not use foreign intelligence capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies on behalf of -- or give intelligence we collect to -- US companies to enhance their international competitiveness or increase their bottom line."

Germany was particularly critical of the NSA's surveillance activities after it was revealed last year that the agency eavesdropped on the phone calls of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and dozens of other world leaders. During reforms to the NSA announced earlier this month, President Obama pledged to end the practice of monitoring the political leaders of US allies.