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As you mentioned the German government in particular: From a legal point of view it its a local public prosecutor who orders such operations. However, the prose

As you mentioned the German government in particular: From a legal point of view it its a local public prosecutor who orders such operations. However, the prosecutor is not independant like a judge, but bound by directives of his superiors. This chain runs back to the minister of justice. So theoretically the German government may order a monitoring measure, but in practice I think in nearly all cases it would be a subordinate authority. As a side note: there has been complaints recently from the European Court of Justice that criticised that the German prosecutors are not independant enough for European standards. A reform is being discussed in German political circles, but nothing specific is to be expected before this years general election in September.

a1369209993 5y ago
> As you mentioned the German government in particular [note emphasis] > its a local public prosecutor who orders such operations. Unless Germany uses "public" in wierd way[0][1] the public prosecutor is part of the government. (It's debatable whether they count as part the national goverment, versus just the local/city/whereever government, but the emphasis on "German government" rather than "German government" suggests that's not what you meant.) 0: eg British "public schools", which IIUC are actually the subset of private schools that aren't limited to a specific profession/religion/other demographic 1: In which case maybe I'm just one of today's lucky 10'000[2] who gets to learn interesting facts about the German court system. 2: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1053 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1053
- Archelaos 5y ago
  To learn something myself I looked up the definitions of the word "government" in the Merriam-Webster dictionary.[1] Most relevant here are the following two: "1 :the body of persons that constitutes the governing authority of a political unit or organization" (example: 'The government was slow to react to the crisis.') "2 a: the organization, machinery, or agency through which a political unit exercises authority ..." What is interesting about this is that the word "government" is usually translated into German as "Regierung", but the German term is more or less exclusively used for the leading part of a body politics (Merriam-Webster's definition 1). When refering to the combined whole of executive, legistlative and judicary we would typically use the word "der Staat" (the state) or would talk about the "Regierungssystem" ("system of government"), which is a bit inconsequently because the "Regierung" is only a part of the "Regierungssystem". So I was reading the sentence of the OP more in the sense of the first definition, because this was closer to the literary translation into German, but can now see that the meaning of the word in English is less precise and therefore more context dependant. [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/government https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/government
  - a1369209993 5y ago
    > the word "government" is usually translated into German as "Regierung", but the German term is more or less exclusively used for the leading part of a body politics Footnote 1 it is then; neat. I'm not sure what a more precise translation for that would be; "administration" (eg "the Bush administration") is the best I can come up with, but that's vague and ambiguous in other ways.

a1369209993 5y ago

> As you mentioned the German government in particular [note emphasis] > its a local public prosecutor who orders such operations. Unless Germany uses "public" in wierd way[0][1] the public prosecutor is part of the government. (It's debatable whether they count as part the national goverment, versus just the local/city/whereever government, but the emphasis on "German government" rather than "German government" suggests that's not what you meant.) 0: eg British "public schools", which IIUC are actually the subset of private schools that aren't limited to a specific profession/religion/other demographic 1: In which case maybe I'm just one of today's lucky 10'000[2] who gets to learn interesting facts about the German court system. 2: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1053 https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1053

Archelaos 5y ago
To learn something myself I looked up the definitions of the word "government" in the Merriam-Webster dictionary.[1] Most relevant here are the following two: "1 :the body of persons that constitutes the governing authority of a political unit or organization" (example: 'The government was slow to react to the crisis.') "2 a: the organization, machinery, or agency through which a political unit exercises authority ..." What is interesting about this is that the word "government" is usually translated into German as "Regierung", but the German term is more or less exclusively used for the leading part of a body politics (Merriam-Webster's definition 1). When refering to the combined whole of executive, legistlative and judicary we would typically use the word "der Staat" (the state) or would talk about the "Regierungssystem" ("system of government"), which is a bit inconsequently because the "Regierung" is only a part of the "Regierungssystem". So I was reading the sentence of the OP more in the sense of the first definition, because this was closer to the literary translation into German, but can now see that the meaning of the word in English is less precise and therefore more context dependant. [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/government https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/government
- a1369209993 5y ago
  > the word "government" is usually translated into German as "Regierung", but the German term is more or less exclusively used for the leading part of a body politics Footnote 1 it is then; neat. I'm not sure what a more precise translation for that would be; "administration" (eg "the Bush administration") is the best I can come up with, but that's vague and ambiguous in other ways.