[quote]An employee of Germany's intelligence service has been arrested on suspicion of spying for the US, reports say. The man is said to have been trying to gather details about a German parliamentary committee that is investigating claims of US espionage. German authorities have asked the US ambassador for "swift clarification". The US National Security Agency (NSA) was last year accused of bugging the phone of Chancellor Angela Merkel as part of a huge surveillance programme. The scale of the agency's global spy programme was revealed in documents leaked last year by a former intelligence contractor, Edward Snowden. The revelations about the NSA put a strain on ties between Germany and the US and raised feeling in Germany against American surveillance. However, one unnamed politician told Reuters news agency the suspect had offered his services to the US voluntarily. "This was a man who had no direct contact with the investigative committee... He was not a top agent," the source said. Germany is particularly sensitive to reports of espionage on its territory because many of its citizens from the formerly communist east of the country were spied upon by the Stasi secret police.[/quote] Erm......Happy 4th of July?