The website published a new list of German phone numbers it claims showed the NSA targeted the officials for surveillance.
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A total of 56 phone numbers are on the list released on Wednesday, including more than 20 from Chancellor Merkel’s present inner circle.
The release risks renewing tensions between Germany and the United States a month after they sought to put a row over spying behind them, with U.S. President Barack Obama declaring in Bavaria that the two nations were “inseparable allies”.
There was no immediate comment from the German government on the latest publication.
In early June, Germany abandoned its investigation into alleged NSA bugging of Chancellor Merkel, because Edward Snowden’s leaks wouldn’t be good enough for a court to accept as evidence, and there wasn’t much chance of any admission by America’s spies or the White House.
In addition to the government of current Chancellor Angela Merkel, the US National Security Agency (NSA) also eavesdropped on the governments of predecessors Gerhard Schroeder and Helmut Kohl, report the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and broadcasters NDR and WDR.
As Wikileaks notes in the new drop, even a guarantee not to wiretap Merkel doesn’t mean her conversations wouldn’t be intercepted, since “the Chancellor cannot run the government by talking to herself”.
The targeted phone numbers included those for the cellphones of senior officials at the chancellery and included that of Ronald Pofalla, Merkel’s ex- chief of staff, WikiLeaks said.
WikiLeaks also published top secret NSA reports from 2009 and 2011 based on intercepts of Merkel’s calls, including discussions with aides and foreign leaders on the Greek debt crisis and Iran’s nuclear development.
Spying is a sensitive issue in Germany because of the abuses of the Nazi and Communist eras.
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The spying row has additionally been stirred by allegations that Merkel’s employees gave the German BND overseas intelligence agency a inexperienced mild to assist the NSA spy on European companies and officers.
