ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

German Chancellor Angela Merkel (Reuters / Hannibal Hanschke) German Chancellor Angela Merkel has defended her staff’s conduct amid the BND/NSA spying scandal, following reports that her administration had purposely misled the public about Washington’s willingness to negotiate a “no-spy agreement” with Berlin. “I can only say that everyone worked according to their best knowledge and conscience – that goes for today's chief of staff but also his predecessor,” Merkel said defending her chief of staff Peter Altmaier as well as predecessors Ronald Pofalla and Thomas de Maiziere. The chancellor's statement follows allegations in the German media last week that just ahead of 2013 German general elections, her then-chief of staff Pofalla lied that Berlin and Washington would start negotiating an agreement not to spy on each other. In reality, as Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reported based on email exchange between the governments, there was no firm commitment at the time in Washing

A group of hackers affiliated with ISIS are threatening to carry out a cyber attack—dubbed “Message to America”—against a number of targets 2 p.m. EST today. The targets were not identified on ISIS forums and social channels but the hackers are promising something “surprising” that “will frighten America”. ISIS supporters calling themselves the Cyber Caliphate hacked into the Twitter account of the United States Central Command in January. Twitter suspended the account detailing the planned attack about 9 a.m. EST.