The U.S. Federal Communications Commission could enter investigations into Deutsche Telekom over admissions it spied on phone calls to identify news leaks, according to a source on Wednesday.

The FCC could initiate its own action to see if DT’s “pretexting” extended to DT-owned T-Mobile USA, the No. 4 U.S. mobile carrier.

“Pretexting is clearly against the law in the U.S.,” said Joe Nordgaard, director of wireless consulting firm Spectral Advantage. “That was made clear in the HP scandal, but there are other complications stemming from the fact that DT is part owned by the German government.”

A spokesman for the FCC said that the agency has not begun an investigation of T-Mobile USA but it has authority to begin one if there is evidence that the DT scandal spread to the United States.

This past weekend DT called the German public prosecutor’s office to initiate a criminal investigation of the company’s misuse of private data involving communications between board members and reporters.

The company said it investigated an individual case in 2007 and the company resolved the incident, but last month the board received information that the case was far more serious and far reaching than the one they investigated.

The German spying scandal is quite similar to the one that shook Hewlett-Packard in 2006. HP paid $14.5 million to settle a suit brought by the California attorney general over the company’s illegal use of private phone records of communications between journalists and board members.

T-Mobile USA is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, and a spokeswoman for the Washington attorney general's office said that the state office has no clear jurisdiction in the matter.