Austrian pol: KPN the target of German spying

The German secret service and the American NSA spied on dozens of data traffic connections belonging to Dutch telecom company KPN. This is according to Austrian politician Peter Pilz at a press conference in Brussels on Thursday, NU reports. Pilz showed a list of the connections. The politician states that the Americans made a list of priorities and the German secret service Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) tapped data from the connections in the list in Frankfurt. Pilz did not say which companies or organizations were targeted, but he did say that 71 Dutch lines were tapped. All except one are KPN connections. These lines run through hubs in Amsterdam and Rotterdam on through Europe and meet at the internet exchange DE-CIX in Frankfurt, where BND allegedly tapped the information. Last week Pilz claimed that the BND intercepted information from, among others, Dutch internet connections and shared the information with the NSA. On Tuesday Minister Ronald Plasterk of Home Affairs wrote a letter to the Tweede Kamer, lower house of parliament, stating that there is currently no evidence suggesting that the Germans have been spying on the Netherlands. KPN announced that they will investigate Pilz latest claim, but expects it will take at least a few weeks, according to NU.