The BND broke the law and then lied to the German Parliament about it. That's what the outrage is about.
Germany has a law regulating surveillance (the G10 Act). It has a number of safeguards to prevent indiscriminate and illegal spying. As far as I know, the BND illegally ignored several of them.
Being a spy agency doesn't mean that you're outside the law.
Spying on other EU nations is not any better. There are strict rules that target selectors used for mass surveillance must obey. Any target selector must be related to the prevention of one of the following:
1. An attack against German territory (i.e. war).
2. International terrorist attacks related to Germany.
3. International arms trafficking.
4. Drug smuggling as part of organized crime.
5. Endangering the stability of the Euro through counterfeiting activities abroad.
6. International money laundering at a large scale.
7. Human trafficking.
Mass surveillance by the BND for purposes outside of these seven areas is not allowed, period; any personal data intercepted that is not related to these areas must be deleted. Most of the target selectors provided by the NSA to the BND did not fall into any of these areas.
Which is probably why they used the NSA to do it. NSA spies on the people and hand the Germans the data. Germans don't technically breach their own laws and both get the intel.
The BND broke the law and then lied to the German Parliament about it. That's what the outrage is about.
Germany has a law regulating surveillance (the G10 Act). It has a number of safeguards to prevent indiscriminate and illegal spying. As far as I know, the BND illegally ignored several of them.
Being a spy agency doesn't mean that you're outside the law.