And what are the government's own spying practices ? Ah : http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/209/1/lang,en/ http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.

And what are the government's own spying practices ? Ah : http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/209/1/lang,en/ http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/209/1/lan... (please note that the only thing the court did was place limits. Every ISP that has lines in Germany is still forced to (a) spy on all it's customers and report the data to the German government (b) allow Germany to tap any of it's customers. It's just that the resulting data can't be used in civil suits) Given that Germany does this to it's own citizens, isn't it exactly as bad as the US ? Sure, it looks like the German government is somewhat less capable when it comes to spying than the NSA is, but it's not fundamentally different. And of course, that could be an illusion. I seem to remember having this article about how Germany sold an old diesel submarine capable of undersea fiber tapping to Israel. I can't seem to find the article, but it does mean Germany has these subs. I find it hard to believe they're unused. Here's an article about the British version : http://intelnews.org/2013/08/29/01-1331/ http://intelnews.org/2013/08/29/01-1331/ I'm in telecommunications and I know for a fact that all northwest european countries have these demands on ISPs. Germany's no exception.