Germany has cancelled a spy pact with the United States and the United Kingdom in response to the American whistleblower Edward Snowden's revelations about the U.S. National Security Agency's surveillance program of monitoring communications and movements of the people.
Berlin was forced to end the Cold War-era pact with two of its allies after Snowden's revelations sparked widespread outrage in the country, where elections are due next month.
Details of the U.S. surveillance program involving the transatlantic allies were leaked to the media by the American whistleblower, who is a former U.S. intelligence analyst.
"The cancellation of the administrative agreements, which we have pushed for in recent weeks, is a necessary and proper consequence of the recent debate about protecting personal privacy," said German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle in a statement.
The cancellation is largely symbolic as the pact dates back to 1968-69 and also it will not affect the working relationships of the intelligence agencies who generally share important information.
Besides strong data protection laws, Germany is sensitive about personal privacy infringements because of its history of mass surveillance during Hitler's regime.
"Ending an agreement made in the pre-internet age gives the Germans a chance to show they're doing something, and at the same time the Americans know it's not going to hurt them," said Henning Riecke of the German Council on Foreign Relations, according to the Associated Press.
Snowden, who was holed up in the transit zone of Moscow's airport for more than a month, was this week granted temporary asylum by the Russian government.
He made asylum requests to more than 25 countries but only few Latin American countries responded and he is likely to move to a Latin American country eventually.
His location in Russia has not been disclosed as he is "the most wanted man on the earth," according to his lawyer. However, Russia announced that he was out of the transit zone and in a safe area in the country.
