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I'm going to quote two paragraphs verbatim, because they distill the practical extent of a universal, collect-it-all surveillance. Anne Roth, a political scien

• crimsoneer 12y ago
  I'm a little sceptical. How do they know precisely what was used to identify them and what words triggered this "data mesh"? I'm not completely au fait with counter-terrorism policing, but they don't usually disclose the entirety of the evidence against you. How did they know they were under surveillance etc? The notion that they were subject to surveillance and arrested based on using seven words is a little far-fetched to me. Surveillance is pretty damn expensive, and I'm pretty confident they weren't the only people to use those words. Again, not necessarily saying they're lying, but I'd love to know where the information comes from.
  • Argorak 12y ago
    There was a lawsuit, she's simply talking about what was in the investigative files.
    • crimsoneer 12y ago
      Yeah, I just suspect there's more to it than what's stated in the article. Surveilling people is really expensive, I doubt they did it just because he'd written an essay with specific words in it.
      • Argorak 12y ago
        The thing is that he didn't do much more than writing the article. He's a sociologist and as such writes about topics that do not necessarily match his opinions. The files didn't give many more reasons beyond that, the prosecution was widely criticised as excessive. Given the courtness, the quote is well picked. The point is that just putting those words our seems to be enough for full surveillance.
      • izacus 12y ago
        Even though Snowden leaks pretty much show that?
        • mpyne 12y ago
          They don't "pretty much show active surveillance on individuals". Even the NSA doesn't have the human intelligence analyst bandwidth for that. The Snowden leaks show pretty expansive collection of data that could be examined by analysts, along with tools to make the analysis of that data even easier, but unless I've missed one there's nothing in the leaks demonstrating "automated SWATting of a house".
          • harry8 12y ago
            And you think the analyst who took the results of a regression analysis on 7 words has a deep theoretical and practical understanding of the statistical models used and their weaknesses. Ok. It's possible. Would you bet your life on it? How about other people's lives on it? It's an easier bet to make but be careful that the stakes are as limited as you think they are, huh?
            • 12y ago
  • ryandrake 12y ago
    I'm also a little skeptical that those words _triggered_ an investigation (if so, it would be pretty scary/amazing). But I have no doubt that once you're the target of a "terrorist" investigation, and the authorities are convinced you're the bad guy, they will find something and it will be enough to arrest/disappear you. Or as someone put it long before I was born, "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."
  • na85 12y ago
    Hello, newly-registered US cyber command account.
• kirsebaer 12y ago
  Some more info about this case: https://www.eff.org/node/81889 https://www.eff.org/node/81889 One of the seven words was “precarisation”, which had been used in a statement by arsonists. Anne Roth was a former squatter and founded Indymedia Germany.
  • mrottenkolber 12y ago
    OH NO! SQUATTERS!
  • harry8 12y ago
    No matter how silly, there's always an apologist. Paid? Unpaid? Who cares, just note nothing is so bad there won't be one and move on. 7 words trawled from all of your combined words of everything you published and no doubt a bunch of stuff you thought was private. You just used that word too, kirsebaer and you did it because you are guilty.
  • spacefight 12y ago
    That is the perfect example how silly this is.
  • graeme 12y ago
    That's also a statement used regularly by French newspapers. "Precaire" is a standard word in french to mean "underemployed", except it's a broader term for all those who have shaky economic systems. Precarisation just means the process of more people falling into tenuous economic circumstances. It's a common topic of discussion in the US....the only difference is that word doesn't really exist in casual English.
• tacc 12y ago
  Was the German Police tipped by the NSA about that alleged terrorist?
  • rtpg 12y ago
    From the EFF summary (https://www.eff.org/node/81889 https://www.eff.org/node/81889) seems to be a movement solely from the German police. Apparently a group was going around burning things in Germany, and publishing long tracts about their acts. Linguistic analysis seemed to link those tracts to her husbands research papers. The whole "7 words" quote seems to be a (wilful or not) misinterpretation of facts : the writing style was probably similar. As someone else mentioned, this person used to be a squatter in East Berlin in the 90s , so one could guess a bit of an anti-authority type. At least that's how the reasoning could go.
    • harry8 12y ago
      rtpg a lot like rpg. Clearly a terrorist. At least that's how the reasoning could go. FFS.
  • dreamweapon 12y ago
    No, they were "tipped off" by some Google searches they did at their own desks. There's nothing to suggest that any surveillance of private communications (by any agencies) had anything to do with the initial investigation. Nor was there anything "high-tech" about the research the investigators did before obtaining their warrants (beyond using Google).
• rtpg 12y ago
  I feel it's kind of odd for these people to go to Germany to flee the NSA, since this sort of thing is happening on German soil, through German initiatives (unless you're thinking that Germany is still some crazy puppet state of the USA). While "consumer privacy rights" mean that you are much more protected against companies in Europe, privacy rights vis-a-vis the governments are virtually non-existant. If you go back and look through the Snowden leaks, you can see that the UK, France, and Germany have extremely deep spying practices with _absolutely no pretense of privacy concerns_. At least in the US we're trying (or at least pretending to try). To my knowledge the craziest thing like this that has happened on US soil is people being held up in the airport (I am prepared to stand corrected on this point). For at least the case of France, I can state with certainty that the NSA has much more restrictions in place than the DGSE has for spying on its own citizens (and others). By spouting the "US pressured Europe to act on these things" meme, we're doing nothing but harm. We're reducing the agency of these governments in the decisions they'll wilfully take up anyways, and missing some gaping holes in European civil rights.
• rbehrends 12y ago
  The summary is misleading. The person in question is Andrej Holm; the word matching algorithm did not directly lead to the search of his home and his arrest. It led to an investigation (in conjunction with his known extremist leanings); the warrants for the search and the arrest were based on his meetings and mail exchanges with the suspect in an arson case [1] (that suspect was later convicted of attempted arson and membership in a criminal organization). That said, while there was plenty of probable cause to justify a search warrant [2] (as far as I can tell), the arrest warrant was all kinds of questionable, even considering the additional incriminating evidence that was found as the result of the search [3]. As the Federal Court of Justice noted when they vacated the arrest warrant [1], all the prosecution could prove was him having connections with the extreme left, but no evidence that he was involved in terrorist activities. And having extreme left sympathies and writing extreme left articles may be criminally stupid, but it's not a crime. With regard to "bursting into their Berlin home", the article also does not mention that Holm had been a member of the "Wachregiment Feliks Dzierzynski" [4], an elite paramilitary regiment under the command of the Stasi. Together with Holm's undoubted connections with the extreme left, law enforcement could be excused for assuming that he may be dangerous. The real concern is that the prosecution kept pushing even when it became increasingly clear that they caught the wrong guy (along with the actual perpetrators); thankfully, the courts would have none of it (this time). [1] http://juris.bundesgerichtshof.de/cgi-bin/rechtsprechung/document.py?Gericht=bgh&nr=41487 http://juris.bundesgerichtshof.de/cgi-bin/rechtsprechung/doc... (judgement vacating the arrest warrant against Andrej Holm, in German) [2] Strictly speaking, German criminal procedure law has different requirements for searches compared to US law, but there's a "probable cause"-like element, and from the looks of it, the prosecution would have had probable cause under the US standard, too. [3] The standard for an arrest warrant is "dringender Tatverdacht", meaning that the suspect is very likely to be the perpetrator, based upon available evidence; it's a higher standard than what is necessary to prosecute, which requires only that a conviction is likely, not very likely. An additional requirement for an arrest warrant is that the suspect is either (1) likely to flee or to (2) engage in obstruction of justice or (3) has been previously convicted of serious crimes and there is substantive evidence that he or she may commit other serious crimes. [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Dzerzhinsky_Guards_Regiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Dzerzhinsky_Guards_Regime...
• dreamweapon 12y ago
  But the disappointing part is that this "data mesh" apparently had nothing to do with the NSA or with automated surveillance in any way: according to this article[1], it was just a matter of some rather uninspired BKA types sitting on their hind quarters, typing a few words into Google, and stumbling on his public writings (or things others had written about him). In the old days, they would have trolled a few bars, planted a few informants here and there, and come up with pretty much the same quality of "evidence" and "leads". (And, thinking back to the anti-RAF days, they quite frequently did). Orwellian references seem definitely overdrawn, in regard to this case. [1] http://www.taz.de/!3471/ http://www.taz.de/!3471/