I see this less as corruption at the top myself and more as a number of internal problems systemic to the BND and the Federal Office for the Protection of the C

I see this less as corruption at the top myself and more as a number of internal problems systemic to the BND and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Germany's domestic intelligence service). I am old enough to have seen a huge number of scandals coming out of the German intelligence services. I've seen Maihofer resign over the Traube affair and I've seen German intelligence snoop on privileged client-attorney communications and a lot of other bad stuff. The list of BND scandals is legion. I would be happy to see resignations of any current and former Chief of the Chancellery involved in these schemes, pour décourager les autres. Let's be clear: the BND has pretty much intentionally broken several of the safeguards contained in the G10 Act, often with internal legal justifications that don't pass the giggle test (and would make only John Yoo proud). And the most recent revelations may mean they even committed crimes (conduction espionage for a foreign power, per §99 of the penal code, and economic espionage, per §17 of the law against unfair competition). This is plenty of reason for heads to roll. And sometimes, the tree of liberty has to be watered with the careers of intelligence service bureaucrats. At the same time, even as an anti-fan of Angela Merkel's policies, I don't see what kicking her out of office would help (unless she had her fingers deeply in this particular pie). Intelligence services regular seem to aim at becoming a state within a state, and dismantling the power structures above them won't help; structuring safeguards so that they aren't as easily circumvented does. For example, in theory, the G10 commission (the watchdog appointed by the Bundestag) has broad control over what the intelligence services can do in terms of surveillance and can stop any and all surveillance measures at any time. In practice, however, that seems to have been circumvented by them not being told in the first place (or being deceived).