Germany to improve counter-espionage efforts

BERLIN , July 7 (UPI) -- Germany, stung by the arrest of an intelligence service employee suspected of spying, will move away from its policy of not spying on NATO allies, a report said Monday.

Monitoring intelligence activities of NATO allies and the removal of U. S. agents from Germany are among "concrete counter-measures" under consideration, the German magazine Bild said in claiming it obtained an Interior Ministry document.

An Interior Ministry spokesman said "an efficient and effective counter-intelligence against all sides is important, necessary, and has to be better organized than it has until now" after Interior minister Thomas de Maiziere called for "360 degree vision" regarding the activities of foreign intelligence agencies.

A member of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrat party, Karl-Georg Wellmann, commented, "If it emerges that the BND employee was really directed by American agents on German soil, then it would be hardly comprehensible if US employees could continue to do harm over here."

An unidentified employee of Germany's BND intelligence agency was arrested last week on suspicion he sold 218 documents classified as confidential or top secret documents to a CIA agent for 25,000 Euros ($34,013).