message.txt

Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
June 14, 2013

The text of the following statement was agreed by the Governments of the 
United States of America and the Federal Republic of Germany on the 
occasion of the U.S.-Germany Cyber Bilateral Meeting June 10-11, 2013.

Begin Text:

The Governments of the United States and Germany held a Cyber Bilateral 
Meeting in Washington, DC on June 10-11, 2013.

The U.S.-Germany Cyber Bilateral Meeting reinforced our long-standing 
alliance by highlighting our pre-existing collaboration on many key 
cyber issues over the course of the last decade and identifying 
additional areas for awareness and alignment. The U.S.-Germany Cyber 
Bilateral Meeting embodied a "whole-of-government" approach, furthering 
our cooperation on a wide range of cyber issues and our collaborative 
engagement on both operational and strategic objectives.

Operational objectives include exchanging information on cyber issues of 
mutual concern and identifying greater cooperation measures on detecting 
and mitigating cyber incidents, combating cybercrime, developing 
practical confidence-building measures to reduce risk, and exploring new 
areas of bilateral cyber defense cooperation.

Strategic objectives include affirming common cyber approaches in 
Internet governance, Internet freedom, and international security; 
partnering with the private sector to protect critical infrastructure, 
including through prospective legislation and other frameworks; and 
pursuing coordination efforts on cyber capacity-building in third 
countries. The discussions specifically focused on continued and 
bolstered support for the multi-stakeholder model for Internet 
governance, particularly as the preparations for Internet Governance 
Forum 8 in Bali, Indonesia are underway; expanding the Freedom Online 
Coalition, particularly as Germany joins the coalition just before the 
next annual meeting in Tunis this month; and the application of norms 
and responsible state behavior in cyberspace, particularly next steps in 
light of successful UN Group of Governmental Experts consensus where key 
governmental experts affirmed the applicability of international law to 
state behavior in cyberspace.

Germany noted its concern in connection with the recent disclosures 
about U.S. Government surveillance programs. The U.S. referenced 
statements by the U.S. President and the Director of National 
Intelligence on this issue and emphasized that such programs are 
designed to protect the United States and other countries from terrorist 
and other threats, are consistent with U.S. law, and are subject to 
strict supervision and oversight by all three branches of the U.S. 
Government. Both sides recognized that this issue will be the subject of 
further dialogue.

The U.S.-Germany Cyber Bilateral Meeting was hosted by the U.S. 
Secretary of State's Coordinator for Cyber Issues, Christopher Painter, 
and included representatives from the Department of State, the 
Department of Commerce, the Department of Homeland Security, the 
Department of Justice, the Department of Defense, the Department of 
Treasury, and the Federal Communications Commission. Mr. Herbert Salber, 
the Federal Foreign Office's Commissioner for Security Policy led the 
German interagency delegation, which included representatives from the 
Federal Foreign Office, the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the 
Federal Office for Information Security, the Federal Ministry of 
Defense, and the Federal Ministry for Economics and Technology.

Coordinator Painter and Commissioner Salber agreed to hold the Cyber 
Bilateral Meeting annually with the next to be held in Berlin in 
mid-2014.