Zee Media Bureau/Ajith Vijay Kumar
Berlin: The suspicion that US` National Security Agency is continuing with its spying activities despite the Snowden shame, may force the Germans to go back back to good old manual typewriters for sensitive documents.
Patrick Sensburg, the head of the Bundestag`s parliamentary inquiry into NSA activity in Germany, said in a TV interview that he and his colleagues were mulling over the option of consciously avoiding electronic transfer of data.
The possibility looks real as Senburg`s comment came days after the government asked the CIA`s station officer in Germany to leave the country after a German intelligence officer confessed to passing confidential documents to US secret agents.
Germany has been at loggerheads with the US ever since whistleblower Edward Snowden blew the lid on NSA monitoring of senior German officials and politicians, including reports that Chancellor Angela Merkel`s mobile phone was tapped for years.
However, there are other voices in Germany which have opposed the idea to embrace typewriters. As per them, the task and challenge for the government is to make its anti-espionage measures.
Germany is not the first country mulling using typewriters. Stung by Snowden revelations, Russia has reportedly started to use typewriters to dodge electronic surveillance.
