While Germany has been claiming outrage over the NSA spying flap, it now appears like the European country might have been doing their own recording of U.S. officials.
German magazine Der Spiegel reported that Germany's foreign intelligence agency BND listened in on satellite phone calls U.S. Secretaries of State John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, The Associated Press notes.
BND recorded a conversation Kerry had in 2013 and one Clinton had with former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2012. However, the phone calls are said to have been accidental as they were reportedly done through the same "frequency" of a terror suspect the agency was monitoring.
Der Spiegel also reported that once the recordings were discovered, BND then supposedly immediately destroyed them. German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung and public broadcasters NDR and WDR corroborated claims of listening in on Clinton.
According to BBC News, government officials claim that it only happened one time, but media reports are saying that isn't actually the case.
The German intelligence agency also allegedly was monitoring NATO member Turkey as far back as 2009.
The reports are embarrassing for Germany, which has responded so angrily towards the United States after finding out about the NSA data collection program and that Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone was hacked.
image courtesy of INFphoto.com