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And the Germans. The Germans haven't been party to most of the post-WWII spying, if I understand geopolitics correctly.

by eatmyshorts 13y ago

tptacek 13y ago
Where did you get that idea? Germany spends something like half a billion every year on signals intelligence.
- eatmyshorts 13y ago
  It's all relative. The US spends some $75 billion: http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/07/news/economy/nsa-surveillance-cost/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/07/news/economy/nsa-surveillanc... . I don't think Germany's budget will go a long way towards sweeping up global communications and analyzing them.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    They also spend on their military a tiny fraction of what we spend on ours. Would you thus claim that there's no German army?
yk 13y ago
I do not believe that Geopolitics is anticommutative, that is Eastern Germany spying on Western Germany + Western Germany spying on Eastern Germany !=0 But I never really looked at the group aspect of international relations.
tobiasu 13y ago
The war wasn't over when the preparations for Germany's new secret service began. The material collected about the Soviets survived the end of the war because it was hidden (on microfilm) in sealed canisters buried in the German Alps, with the intent to side with the Americans and start spying on the Soviets again... The plan totally worked. To make it even better, the organization gobbled up high-profile Nazis who wanted to avoid prosecution like nobodies business. Even today, whenever someone wants to take a closer look at the people who work(ed) there, documents vanish and nobody knows a damn thing. Then there is the entire StaSi. Of course they lost, so we get to point fingers at them and declare them the bad guys. Germany may have strong privacy laws, but our three branches of secret services are exempt in various ways. Don't kid yourself. We are most likely right up there with France.
eatmyshorts 13y ago
Well, looks like I was the fool: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/edward-snowden-accuses-germany-of-aiding-nsa-in-spying-efforts-a-909847.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/edward-snowden-acc...

And the Germans. The Germans haven't been party to most of the post-WWII spying, if I understand geopolitics correctly.

tptacek 13y ago

Where did you get that idea? Germany spends something like half a billion every year on signals intelligence.

eatmyshorts 13y ago
It's all relative. The US spends some $75 billion: http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/07/news/economy/nsa-surveillance-cost/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/07/news/economy/nsa-surveillanc... . I don't think Germany's budget will go a long way towards sweeping up global communications and analyzing them.
- tptacek 13y ago
  They also spend on their military a tiny fraction of what we spend on ours. Would you thus claim that there's no German army?

yk 13y ago

I do not believe that Geopolitics is anticommutative, that is Eastern Germany spying on Western Germany + Western Germany spying on Eastern Germany !=0 But I never really looked at the group aspect of international relations.

tobiasu 13y ago

The war wasn't over when the preparations for Germany's new secret service began. The material collected about the Soviets survived the end of the war because it was hidden (on microfilm) in sealed canisters buried in the German Alps, with the intent to side with the Americans and start spying on the Soviets again... The plan totally worked. To make it even better, the organization gobbled up high-profile Nazis who wanted to avoid prosecution like nobodies business. Even today, whenever someone wants to take a closer look at the people who work(ed) there, documents vanish and nobody knows a damn thing. Then there is the entire StaSi. Of course they lost, so we get to point fingers at them and declare them the bad guys. Germany may have strong privacy laws, but our three branches of secret services are exempt in various ways. Don't kid yourself. We are most likely right up there with France.

eatmyshorts 13y ago

Well, looks like I was the fool: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/edward-snowden-accuses-germany-of-aiding-nsa-in-spying-efforts-a-909847.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/edward-snowden-acc...