Comment Re:It's also possible that Der Spiegel was wrong (Score 1) 81
Also, the US admitted it and then said they weren't doing it anymore. That's kind of odd - normally a public admission backed by documentary evidence would be sufficient for a criminal prosecution, no?
No the US never admitted it. The White House said it wasn't being done at present (in 2013) and wouldn't do it in the future, but refused to comment on whether it had been done in the past.
Also, it's not a crime for countries to spy on other countries. More precisely, there is no international law making it illegal. Countries have laws against spying, but German courts can't usefully prosecute the the United States. Germany could prosecute the specific people who installed the taps, assuming they could identify and get hold of them (the US obviously wouldn't honor an extradition request).
The whole notion of "crime" is simply irrelevant here. This is a question of international relations, where countries punish those they believe do them ill by other mechanisms, ranging from subtle snubs to nuclear war, with lots and lots of gradations in between.