Euronews on Crypto: US and West German intelligence 'used Swiss firm to spy on governments' (2020)

US and West German intelligence agencies spied on governments across  the world for decades using a Swiss encryption firm, a new investigation  has claimed.

Hundreds of countries used Crypto AG equipment to  protect their top secrets but a probe has found the firm was covertly  owned by the CIA and German spy agency BND.

But,  by rigging the equipment, American and Western German intelligence  agents were able to listen in on their allies and enemies.

The  revelation came from a classified CIA report that was obtained by German  public broadcaster ZDF. It worked with the Washington Post to break the  story.

ZDF's Washington bureau chief Elmar Theveßen told  Euronews it was likely the "biggest intelligence eavesdropping operation  of the past 60 years".

He said US and West German intelligence  agencies used the programme from 1970 to 1993, with the CIA continuing  alone until around 2018.

Theveßen  said it was used, for example, to listen in to what was happening  during Argentina's military dictatorship in the 1970s.

"The US  and Germany were able to basically know everything about what was going  on with regards to critics of the regime," he said.

"More than  30,000 people were killed back then. They just disappeared and Germany  and the US knew exactly what happened through listening in to these  communications and, of course, this prompts the big ethical question:  why didn't they do anything about it?"

Theveßen also claimed  intelligence agencies shared information with then UK Prime Minister  Margaret Thatcher that could have prevented the Falklands War.