Countries of greatest interest to the U.S. are China, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan, according to German weekly.

The United States’ surveillance programs included intensive spying on Germany, the German weekly Der Spiegel reported on Saturday. Der Spiegel cited a classified document from the archive of Edward Snowden, the American citizen who fled the U.S. after revealing details of its espionage programs and has received temporary asylum in Russia. According to the report, in April 2013, U.S. officials ranked its espionage targets on a scale of 1 (of highest interest) to 5. 

Germany’s BND intelligence service sends “massive amounts” of intercepts to the NSA daily, according to a report based on Edward Snowden’s leaks. It suggests a tight relationship has been developed between the two agencies – which the BND claims is legal.

Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Snowden and obtained by Der Spiegel revealed that the 500 million pieces of phone and email communications metadata collected by the NSA in Germany last December were “apparently” provided with the BND’s approval. The data was allegedly handed over at two collection sites as part of the operation titled “Germany – Last 30 days.”

According to Der Spiegel, Germany's intelligence agency has a 100-million-euro plan to expand Internet surveillance. Meanwhile, the interior minister wants travelers to fill out a questionnaire before entering the EU. Der Spiegel reported on Sunday that the Federal Intelligence Service plans to expand its Internet surveillance program to cover 20 percent of all communications between Germany and foreign countries.

Because of technical limitations, the intelligence agency - known by its German acronym, BND - currently only monitors 5 percent of all Internet and telephone communication. However, according to German law, the BND can snoop on a maximum 20 percent of all communications traffic.