12 ms·

Germans, still outraged by NSA spying, learn their country may have helped

216 points by junto 11y ago

tomschlick 11y ago
Of course they did. It's the explicit job of these organizations (in all countries) to spy on foreign powers, multi-national companies, and potential people that may be a threat. We spy on our best allies and you'd better believe they spy on us. We just happen to have the evidence of the US doing it thanks to Snowden. It may not be right but they all do it. Edit: Really? Down voted for saying that most countries probably do this? I'm not saying its right, just that it's not particularly surprising.
- 13 11y ago
  I don't understand anybody using that as justification. Why is that necessary? We live in a pretty miserable world if your only answer is "because everyone else is doing it".
  - tomschlick 11y ago
    I think its a "trust but verify" mentality. You know that your neighbor is probably trust worthy but you still keep tabs on them to make sure they are not secretly planning something against you. The issue you have with stopping yourself is that your neighbor may still be doing so, and I'd imagine from a nation's perspective its crucial to have the same kind of info on them that others have on you.
    - 13 11y ago
      To me that sounds like no trust at all.
    - fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
      "trust but verify" is an old Russian proverb and was Reagan's line that he used to refer to the USSR WRT a nuclear disarmament treaty. Are we treating the Germans like the old USSR now? Is having an unfair advantage in commerce as important as knowing where are all of the nuclear missiles that are aimed at us? I think it is somewhat less "crucial" than you appear to think; and I think that "because fuck you, that's why" is the foreign policy of a thug.
      - tomschlick 11y ago
        If it's apparently less crucial than I think then why do most major governments have clandestine intelligence services whose sole purpose is to spy on other nations?
        saiya-jin 11y ago
        Just because you have some paranoid fuckups in your government doesn't mean you should give them all powers unchecked, right? Like all else in hierarchical structures, there should be some proper oversight and control, by unbiased authorities (well, it would be nice at least). Problem seems to be, these services run at free will, they feel above law and constitution, justifying just about everything with "terrorist threat" mantra. Politicians seems weak/corrupt so they don't stand for common citizen's rights. Somebody from Obama's government expressed frustration once how all these services/programs/activities run basically on autopilot, and nobody dares to cut their budget. Let's take a step back... does anybody truly believe current terrorism can shake foundations of any western society? I don't mean blowing hypothetical nukes in manhattan, but real things that happened. Planes falling, buildings collapsing, very sad events, but nothing major in civilization perspective. Our perception of these events is hugely disproportionate, based on our fears. Yet we are, step by step, losing our freedom like the alternative would be total annihilation and end of the world as we know it. Not even terrorist themselves want that. And they are not winning in any measurable way. It's natural for any ambitious organisational unit, with strong leader, to try to grab all power, influence etc that's available. Normal comapnies have strict boundaries how far the power can reach, so for example you won't find a single bank that is effectively run by it's head of IT, in fact in contrary (IT is a true backoffice, in the back of the back of the back of the rest). Just set the boundaries and enforce them with budget cuts threat. Now who will do that is the question :)
        13 11y ago
        On a statistical side almost anything else is likely to kill you. There's probably more people killed each year by ladders than some perceived external threat, and I don't see a war on ladders happening anywhere.
  - bayesianhorse 11y ago
    I do believe intelligence services are necessary. Essentially a government has two different sources of information: the overt sources, and the covert sources. Both have their problems. The overt sources are easy for adversaries (in a very broad sense) to manipulate and observe. The covert sources have the inherent problem that less oversight usually means incompetence and abuse.
- junto 11y ago
  I think it is the complicity of the BND on behalf of the US that has got Germans annoyed, as well as asking a German spy agency to spy on, and feed information on German companies, to the detriment of those companies in favour of US companies. Germans are just starting to realize that they are as much a US poodle as the Brits across the pond.
  - tomschlick 11y ago
    Agreed. I'd imagine most of the close allies have cooperated in this fashion at some point. They just don't talk about it for fear of public backlash.
  - lispm 11y ago
    There is nothing to realize. That's known for a long time. Other than GB we have been occupied by the US, we have large US installations here - including the US military central commands for Europe and Africa (!). The situation is understandable, because Germany caused and lost WWII. But after 70 years since the war has ended, many Germans wish that the US stops using Germany as tool.
    - tormeh 11y ago
      With the amount that Germany spends on defence, subjugating the entire defense and intelligence community to the US might be the optimal strategy. Defence may be like Facebook - if you won't pay cash you'll have to pay in other ways.
      - lispm 11y ago
        > With the amount that Germany spends on defence Germany is one of the top defense spending countries. You may check also a map. Germany is surrounded by friends. Germany also doesn't have an empire to maintain. We have spend billions on useless adventures like in Afghanistan. Luckily Germany was not stupid enough to take part in other adventures: Iraq, Libya, ... That the US decides to spend as much as the next twenty countries together is only their problem. But the US politics has made parts of the world a very unsafe place. Check the US politics in north-africa and middle east: toppling regimes and trying to install new regimes. This has created a huge mess and creates problems throughout the region. The rise of ISIS/IS is one of those results.
- lispm 11y ago
  You have no clue. The BND helped the NSA to spy on GERMANS and GERMAN companies. Plus EUROPEANs. It's not the job of the BND to help the NSA to spy on Germany and the EU. > We spy on our best allies and you'd better believe they spy on us. We just happen to have the evidence of the US doing it thanks to Snowden. Look, the difference is this: we have literally THOUSANDS of NSA, CIA and US military agency personal in Germany. There are huge official installations of the NSA, the CIA and US military in Germany. Instead of respecting the host country, they are spying on us, collecting data, manage their wars, disrespecting our laws, ... There is nothing, absolutely NOTHING, even remotely comparable done by Germany in or around the US.
  - tomschlick 11y ago
    > The BND helped the NSA to spy on GERMANS and GERMAN companies. Didn't know that part. Thats an interesting twist. I could understand them working together against someone else but not against themselves. Must be part of that "Five eyes" cooperation thing Snowden was talking about.
    - DyslexicAtheist 11y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundestrojaner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundestrojaner
    - lispm 11y ago
      German companies are very unhappy. http://www.dw.de/airbus-to-press-charges-on-nsa-bnd-spying-claims/a-18422548 http://www.dw.de/airbus-to-press-charges-on-nsa-bnd-spying-c... Airbus has both civilian and military development and production in Germany.
      - junto 11y ago
        If I understand this correctly, Boeing (US) and Airbus (EU) are competing head to head for extremely valuable contracts. The NSA tasks the BND to spy on Airbus employees and the company in order to maintain Boeing's competitive edge over Airbus. In doing so, threatening the jobs of fellow Germans (and other Europeans). Is that more or less what has been going on?
- bad_user 11y ago
  We are talking about governments spying on their own citizens and not on other countries. And I find it incredible that opinions such as yours are so prevalent. Because yes, it should be surprising, as this happens with governments that we elected and that should serve us and our rights. And when this happens too often with no relief in sight, it usually means that we need a revolution. The NSA revelations are actively hurting USA's economy. You may not see it, but European companies have started to actively avoid US-made and US-hosted products and services, because guess what, people do care about it, especially companies that are increasingly worried about industrial espionage from American companies. Therefore I usually think of shilling when seeing such pieces of opinion, because it's easy to gather a bunch of trolls to try and shift the public opinion by posting such messages on public forums - I know that at least the Chinese and the Israelis are doing it. But then I think of Occam's Razor and remember that people are in essence just sheep wanting to be shepherd.
  - tomschlick 11y ago
    > And I find it incredible that opinions such as yours are so prevalent. I would have been surprised pre-snowden. But after reading what he released and watching Citizen Four I wouldn't put anything past them at this point.
  - Amezarak 11y ago
    > The NSA revelations are actively hurting USA's economy. You may not see it, but European companies have started to actively avoid US-made and US-hosted products and services, because guess what, people do care about it, especially companies that are increasingly worried about industrial espionage from American companies. Who are they buying from, then? All of Europe is spying on each other. German companies even refer to France as the "evil empire" of industrial espionage - not the USA. And of course many other countries like China are also spying. When I hear European politicians lobbying for local hosting services and the like, I think it in part has much more to do with getting more negotiating power at the international surveillance table. NSA had hooks directly into various services that other countries had to bargain with the NSA for, if they can get services hosted in their own countries, they can be the go-to organization and have more bargaining chips.
- fromtheoutside 11y ago
  I have partly to agree, nobody cares if you spy on their citizens. However, once you can prove industrial espionage it becomes a totally different discussion.
- nl 11y ago
  You are downvoted because you haven't read the article. The outrage is because they help the NSA spy on German politicians and companies, against the interests of Germany.
- rbehrends 11y ago
  The point is not that the BND spied. The BND broke the law and then lied to the German Parliament about it. That's what the outrage is about. Germany has a law regulating surveillance (the G10 Act). It has a number of safeguards to prevent indiscriminate and illegal spying. As far as I know, the BND illegally ignored several of them. Being a spy agency doesn't mean that you're outside the law.
  - tomschlick 11y ago
    I see that now. I originally missed that they were helping spy on their own citizens vs just other EU nations.
    - rbehrends 11y ago
      Spying on other EU nations is not any better. There are strict rules that target selectors used for mass surveillance must obey. Any target selector must be related to the prevention of one of the following: 1. An attack against German territory (i.e. war). 2. International terrorist attacks related to Germany. 3. International arms trafficking. 4. Drug smuggling as part of organized crime. 5. Endangering the stability of the Euro through counterfeiting activities abroad. 6. International money laundering at a large scale. 7. Human trafficking. Mass surveillance by the BND for purposes outside of these seven areas is not allowed, period; any personal data intercepted that is not related to these areas must be deleted. Most of the target selectors provided by the NSA to the BND did not fall into any of these areas.
      - tomschlick 11y ago
        Which is probably why they used the NSA to do it. NSA spies on the people and hand the Germans the data. Germans don't technically breach their own laws and both get the intel. Scary as fuck for our privacy.
emsy 11y ago
The sad thing is, in Germany the public doesn't really seem to care. They are still the same nation that follows allong blindly until the shit is hitting the fan. Of course, when the crash comes, the responsibility will be delegated upwards.
- lawl 11y ago
  I think it's that way everywhere. When I talked to people about it in Switzerland they often respond with something like "this isn't a problem here, this is $country_where_i_live_in they wouldn't abuse their powers. The NSA? Sure THEY are horrible, but in $country_where_i_live_in, nah, they wouldn't do stuff like that. That's impossible." You can point out that the last time they did (and got caught) was only 26 years ago [0]. They don't care. I'm not sure there's anything we can do about it. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_files_scandal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_files_scandal
- bayesianhorse 11y ago
  What "shit" is hitting what "fan"? We're not following blindly. Far from it. There is a big conversation going on and the government might fall over this incident.
  - junto 11y ago
    There is a local election on Sunday in Bremen (state level): http://www.wahlrecht.de/termine.htm http://www.wahlrecht.de/termine.htm It will certainly be interesting to see if this scandal is of any importance to the voters.
    - bayesianhorse 11y ago
      I sure hope not. Nobody running in that election has anything to do with the scandal, but there sure are candidates which could harm Bremen a lot in the coming few years.
      - junto 11y ago
bayesianhorse 11y ago
What I know until now does not make me want to elect a new government. Really. I'm German and I follow the political scene. This scandal is bad enough. I understand the urge to slap the government. But that punishment would ultimately hurt our society more than it would hurt the responsible parties. I don't see a chancellor that I don't believe will do a worse job than Merkel, and getting rid of the two dominant parties only leaves inexperienced and incompetent politicians to do the job.
- krylon 11y ago
  I would go quite that far. But our political system is pretty much rigged to ensure that the government is fairly subservient to the USA. Also, intelligence services, due to the secrecy in which they operate, have a tendency (to put it mildly) of developing an agenda of their own which may not always be aligned with the government's agenda. The scary thing is, this headline does not even surprise me any more, it does not shock me, and it does not even make me angry. It is just another piece in a vast puzzle that adds to the overall picture but does not change it substantially.
  - tempodox 11y ago
    But our political system is pretty much rigged to ensure that the government is fairly subservient to the USA. How so?
    - bayesianhorse 11y ago
      "subservient" may be a bit too harsh a term. In history it was far more profitable to ally with the US than with any other superpower. That goes double because especially in the decades just after WWII nobody would trust Germany with enough weapons to defend itself, and so there really were only two choices: Ally with the US, or be swallowed by the Warsaw pact. They did have the invasion plans, by the way.
      - tempodox 11y ago
        The U.S. wouldn't have let any country fall prey to the communists, so keeping Germany with “the west” was very much in their own interest. Hell, they used planes for years to keep even half a city (west Berlin) from falling to the communists. Your arguments don't convince me.
DyslexicAtheist 11y ago
this isn't surprising. Germans should be outraged since the late 90ies. The topic has been in and out of the news in Germany since long before Snowden. What the Americans did with projects like ‟Echolon” was openly known to most (albeit disputed by the Americans). http://blog.valbonne-consulting.com/2015/02/16/tinker-tailor-soldier-spy-us-industrial-espionage-in-germany/ http://blog.valbonne-consulting.com/2015/02/16/tinker-tailor...
- wolfgke 11y ago
  Many Germans were more or less aware of Echolon, but most thought it wouldn't be that bad (I was not among them from beginning and was talking against a brick wall (and still do in related topics)). With Snowden lots of Germans became aware that all these few alerters that were laughed down were right from the beginning.
CaptainZapp 11y ago
This article : http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/bnd-intelligence-scandal-puts-merkel-in-tight-place-a-1031944.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/bnd-intelligence... may be interesting in this context. Note that Der Spiegel is considered a top notch news source. Something like a German Economist in a way.
- dgdsgdsg 11y ago
  Not true
- hans_mueller 11y ago
  > Note that Der Spiegel is considered a top notch news source. By who? Certainly not by me ...
  - junto 11y ago
    Out of interest is it a bad news source? I always thought it was more of a conservative opinion magazine? What are good news sources in Germany?
    - winterbe 11y ago
      http://www.tagesschau.de/ http://www.tagesschau.de/ http://www.faz.net/ http://www.faz.net/
      - amatera 11y ago
        Tagesschau? Really? To often they show pictures from wrong places and have a lot of hoax. Just google for "tagesschau falschmeldungen". I personaly trust Spiegel more... but thats only my opinion ;)
        aluhut 11y ago
        Googling that brings you to Putins fans and islamophobes. Googling that with Spiegel brings you to Spiegel Online...well I don't know. I'll stay with the tagesschau for my daily 8PM news overview and look for details somewhere on the net avoiding Spiegel Online. Can't do anything bad this way ;)
tempodox 11y ago
It's not the first time to see collaboration like that. Time and again I find it fascinating how the members of the “surveillance community” seem to have a closer relationship with each other (across countries) than with their respective civilian compatriots.
- junto 11y ago
  It is the 'us and them' mentality. I know someone who worked in a government security service. Their opinion of the general population's ability to self-govern is less than positive. To be clear, I've put that quite diplomatically. They think we are a bunch of idiots who don't understand the bigger picture. Of course the fact that the bigger picture is deliberately kept secret from us is overlooked. They are self serving, but what is worse in the US is that the security services are basically a bunch of private firms, who have a vested interest in keeping the government spending billions of dollars. Many of those companies also have vested interests in selling arms. It isn't a good mix.
  - saiya-jin 11y ago
    ...and we see results of this every day in news. "Follow the money" rule should be used all the time as default when trying to understand what the hell is going on in this world
- Zigurd 11y ago
  It's called the Deep State. Germans feel outrage because, up to now, the Deep State was meant to keep the volatile and dangerous (not to mention swarthy and Muslim) Turks in line. now the Germans find they don't really run their own country for the purpose of anything of importance to the US. Their "democracy" is as well-managed as Turkey's.
madez 11y ago
The dagger complex needs to be closed.
rmc 11y ago
A few weeks ago China was attacking a US company (GitHub), and many Americans here called for China to be kicked off the internet. Now the USA is spying on French companies. I presume the same people will call for the USA to be kicked off the internet?
- pyvpx 11y ago
  see "American Exceptionalism"
- wolfgke 11y ago
  > I presume the same people will call for the USA to be kicked off the internet? Or at least put the DNS root zone under international control (currently the root zone is under control of the Department of Commerce; cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_root_zone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_root_zone).
  - atmosx 11y ago
    I am trying to think how on earth can we avoid that in the future... Every country will turn into an closed-Internet Island. You won't be able to buy anything abroad without being taxed (multiple times), you won't be able to purchase remote services (even if they are far superior). Government will turn the internet into something unimaginably ugly. Then we'll have books to explain how the internet was once upon a time.
    - alfiedotwtf 11y ago
      Nothing is stopping you start a new root DNS. In fact, people are doing just that: https://bit.namecoin.info/
      - _lce0 11y ago
        This is great. Thanks for sharing! I really see that this is the right direction, however this requires that each user install something in their machines, which wont converge quickly.
kra34 11y ago
Rick: How can you close me up? On what grounds? Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here! [a croupier hands Renault a pile of money] Croupier: Your winnings, sir. Captain Renault: Oh, thank you very much.
allendoerfer 11y ago
As a German I would suggest to just ask the NSA to leave the country. Additionally, I do not want Gabriel to become chancellor, but I would like to see Merkel and de Maizière (who already survived a remarkable amount of scandals) getting bitten by this. America is a friend and important to us, but even more are our ties to France and the EU, which should be our number one priority by a large margin. But as soon as you argue in that direction someone from an agency, who wants to play with the big guys and their big toys, comes along and argues how America is critical for our security and how endangered we are and that Germany did not had a terrorist attack yet just because the mighty US of A guards us. If he is good at his job, he manages to slip in the Marshall Plan as well. People seem to believe this, even if they know, how our agencies fail to prevent (non-islamic) terrorism [0] and that it was in fact the police on its own that caught the attempted (islamic) bomber in Frankfurt last week [1]. [0]: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/16/german-neo-nazi-security-service-scandal http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/16/german-neo-nazi... [1]: http://news.yahoo.com/report-german-police-conduct-anti-terrorism-raid-detain-103609247.html http://news.yahoo.com/report-german-police-conduct-anti-terr...
- mohawk 11y ago
  Every time we hear about a new scandal in our German secret services, i await the news of another terrorist cell to be busted. I am rarely disappointed. Cynical me imagines a little cottage industry inside the secret services, always with a small queue of potential terrorists that their handlers can then push further on short notice. These terrorists can then be raided and presented to the public, reinvigorating our fear and making us think that the deep state is the lesser of two evils. And then, after a few weeks, it is back to business as usual.
  - junto 11y ago
    The conspiracy nut part of me could also believe that they have a parallel stream of stupid and mentality ill ones that can be used to actually implement 'terrorist' attacks, but are supposed to be both directed, then contained and killed before they can inflict too much damage (or talk afterwards in front of a jury). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Sydney_hostage_crisis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Sydney_hostage_crisis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo_shooting#Ch.C3.A9rif_and_Sa.C3.AFd_Kouachi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo_shooting#Ch.C3.A9...
stillsut 11y ago
Remember who made the equipment Stuxnet targetted? Siemens. When you export lots of specialized industrial equipment with potential use in military/nuclear tech, someone is probably monitoring you. Oversight is good for everybody.
bane 11y ago
I don't understand why this keeps getting reported like it's new news, or that Germans seem to keep forgetting this and "learning" about it again and again.
- justaman 11y ago
  Perhaps the only way around cognitive dissonance is repetition.
filoeleven 11y ago
I posted this in response to a comment downthread, then realized that it's probably more appropriate at the top level, given the headline. Sorry for the dupe. That's not all the US is doing in Deutschland. "[T]he slides show that the facilities at Ramstein perform an essential function in lethal drone strikes conducted by the CIA and the U.S. military in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Africa."[0] So it is not just spying on the EU that is being enabled by Germany's government, it is the entirety of the US drone program that is being used across the Middle East and north Africa. This program, operating as it does outside of declared war zones, is very probably illegal under German law. [0]https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/17/ramstein/ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/17/ramstein/

216 points by junto 11y ago

Of course they did. It's the explicit job of these organizations (in all countries) to spy on foreign powers, multi-national companies, and potential people that may be a threat. We spy on our best allies and you'd better believe they spy on us. We just happen to have the evidence of the US doing it thanks to Snowden. It may not be right but they all do it. Edit: Really? Down voted for saying that most countries probably do this? I'm not saying its right, just that it's not particularly surprising.

13 11y ago
I don't understand anybody using that as justification. Why is that necessary? We live in a pretty miserable world if your only answer is "because everyone else is doing it".
- tomschlick 11y ago
  I think its a "trust but verify" mentality. You know that your neighbor is probably trust worthy but you still keep tabs on them to make sure they are not secretly planning something against you. The issue you have with stopping yourself is that your neighbor may still be doing so, and I'd imagine from a nation's perspective its crucial to have the same kind of info on them that others have on you.
  - 13 11y ago
    To me that sounds like no trust at all.
  - fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
    "trust but verify" is an old Russian proverb and was Reagan's line that he used to refer to the USSR WRT a nuclear disarmament treaty. Are we treating the Germans like the old USSR now? Is having an unfair advantage in commerce as important as knowing where are all of the nuclear missiles that are aimed at us? I think it is somewhat less "crucial" than you appear to think; and I think that "because fuck you, that's why" is the foreign policy of a thug.
    - tomschlick 11y ago
      If it's apparently less crucial than I think then why do most major governments have clandestine intelligence services whose sole purpose is to spy on other nations?
      - saiya-jin 11y ago
        Just because you have some paranoid fuckups in your government doesn't mean you should give them all powers unchecked, right? Like all else in hierarchical structures, there should be some proper oversight and control, by unbiased authorities (well, it would be nice at least). Problem seems to be, these services run at free will, they feel above law and constitution, justifying just about everything with "terrorist threat" mantra. Politicians seems weak/corrupt so they don't stand for common citizen's rights. Somebody from Obama's government expressed frustration once how all these services/programs/activities run basically on autopilot, and nobody dares to cut their budget. Let's take a step back... does anybody truly believe current terrorism can shake foundations of any western society? I don't mean blowing hypothetical nukes in manhattan, but real things that happened. Planes falling, buildings collapsing, very sad events, but nothing major in civilization perspective. Our perception of these events is hugely disproportionate, based on our fears. Yet we are, step by step, losing our freedom like the alternative would be total annihilation and end of the world as we know it. Not even terrorist themselves want that. And they are not winning in any measurable way. It's natural for any ambitious organisational unit, with strong leader, to try to grab all power, influence etc that's available. Normal comapnies have strict boundaries how far the power can reach, so for example you won't find a single bank that is effectively run by it's head of IT, in fact in contrary (IT is a true backoffice, in the back of the back of the back of the rest). Just set the boundaries and enforce them with budget cuts threat. Now who will do that is the question :)
        13 11y ago
        On a statistical side almost anything else is likely to kill you. There's probably more people killed each year by ladders than some perceived external threat, and I don't see a war on ladders happening anywhere.
- bayesianhorse 11y ago
  I do believe intelligence services are necessary. Essentially a government has two different sources of information: the overt sources, and the covert sources. Both have their problems. The overt sources are easy for adversaries (in a very broad sense) to manipulate and observe. The covert sources have the inherent problem that less oversight usually means incompetence and abuse.
junto 11y ago
I think it is the complicity of the BND on behalf of the US that has got Germans annoyed, as well as asking a German spy agency to spy on, and feed information on German companies, to the detriment of those companies in favour of US companies. Germans are just starting to realize that they are as much a US poodle as the Brits across the pond.
- tomschlick 11y ago
  Agreed. I'd imagine most of the close allies have cooperated in this fashion at some point. They just don't talk about it for fear of public backlash.
- lispm 11y ago
  There is nothing to realize. That's known for a long time. Other than GB we have been occupied by the US, we have large US installations here - including the US military central commands for Europe and Africa (!). The situation is understandable, because Germany caused and lost WWII. But after 70 years since the war has ended, many Germans wish that the US stops using Germany as tool.
  - tormeh 11y ago
    With the amount that Germany spends on defence, subjugating the entire defense and intelligence community to the US might be the optimal strategy. Defence may be like Facebook - if you won't pay cash you'll have to pay in other ways.
    - lispm 11y ago
      > With the amount that Germany spends on defence Germany is one of the top defense spending countries. You may check also a map. Germany is surrounded by friends. Germany also doesn't have an empire to maintain. We have spend billions on useless adventures like in Afghanistan. Luckily Germany was not stupid enough to take part in other adventures: Iraq, Libya, ... That the US decides to spend as much as the next twenty countries together is only their problem. But the US politics has made parts of the world a very unsafe place. Check the US politics in north-africa and middle east: toppling regimes and trying to install new regimes. This has created a huge mess and creates problems throughout the region. The rise of ISIS/IS is one of those results.
lispm 11y ago
You have no clue. The BND helped the NSA to spy on GERMANS and GERMAN companies. Plus EUROPEANs. It's not the job of the BND to help the NSA to spy on Germany and the EU. > We spy on our best allies and you'd better believe they spy on us. We just happen to have the evidence of the US doing it thanks to Snowden. Look, the difference is this: we have literally THOUSANDS of NSA, CIA and US military agency personal in Germany. There are huge official installations of the NSA, the CIA and US military in Germany. Instead of respecting the host country, they are spying on us, collecting data, manage their wars, disrespecting our laws, ... There is nothing, absolutely NOTHING, even remotely comparable done by Germany in or around the US.
- tomschlick 11y ago
  > The BND helped the NSA to spy on GERMANS and GERMAN companies. Didn't know that part. Thats an interesting twist. I could understand them working together against someone else but not against themselves. Must be part of that "Five eyes" cooperation thing Snowden was talking about.
  - DyslexicAtheist 11y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundestrojaner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundestrojaner
  - lispm 11y ago
    German companies are very unhappy. http://www.dw.de/airbus-to-press-charges-on-nsa-bnd-spying-claims/a-18422548 http://www.dw.de/airbus-to-press-charges-on-nsa-bnd-spying-c... Airbus has both civilian and military development and production in Germany.
    - junto 11y ago
      If I understand this correctly, Boeing (US) and Airbus (EU) are competing head to head for extremely valuable contracts. The NSA tasks the BND to spy on Airbus employees and the company in order to maintain Boeing's competitive edge over Airbus. In doing so, threatening the jobs of fellow Germans (and other Europeans). Is that more or less what has been going on?
bad_user 11y ago
We are talking about governments spying on their own citizens and not on other countries. And I find it incredible that opinions such as yours are so prevalent. Because yes, it should be surprising, as this happens with governments that we elected and that should serve us and our rights. And when this happens too often with no relief in sight, it usually means that we need a revolution. The NSA revelations are actively hurting USA's economy. You may not see it, but European companies have started to actively avoid US-made and US-hosted products and services, because guess what, people do care about it, especially companies that are increasingly worried about industrial espionage from American companies. Therefore I usually think of shilling when seeing such pieces of opinion, because it's easy to gather a bunch of trolls to try and shift the public opinion by posting such messages on public forums - I know that at least the Chinese and the Israelis are doing it. But then I think of Occam's Razor and remember that people are in essence just sheep wanting to be shepherd.
- tomschlick 11y ago
  > And I find it incredible that opinions such as yours are so prevalent. I would have been surprised pre-snowden. But after reading what he released and watching Citizen Four I wouldn't put anything past them at this point.
- Amezarak 11y ago
  > The NSA revelations are actively hurting USA's economy. You may not see it, but European companies have started to actively avoid US-made and US-hosted products and services, because guess what, people do care about it, especially companies that are increasingly worried about industrial espionage from American companies. Who are they buying from, then? All of Europe is spying on each other. German companies even refer to France as the "evil empire" of industrial espionage - not the USA. And of course many other countries like China are also spying. When I hear European politicians lobbying for local hosting services and the like, I think it in part has much more to do with getting more negotiating power at the international surveillance table. NSA had hooks directly into various services that other countries had to bargain with the NSA for, if they can get services hosted in their own countries, they can be the go-to organization and have more bargaining chips.
fromtheoutside 11y ago
I have partly to agree, nobody cares if you spy on their citizens. However, once you can prove industrial espionage it becomes a totally different discussion.
nl 11y ago
You are downvoted because you haven't read the article. The outrage is because they help the NSA spy on German politicians and companies, against the interests of Germany.
rbehrends 11y ago
The point is not that the BND spied. The BND broke the law and then lied to the German Parliament about it. That's what the outrage is about. Germany has a law regulating surveillance (the G10 Act). It has a number of safeguards to prevent indiscriminate and illegal spying. As far as I know, the BND illegally ignored several of them. Being a spy agency doesn't mean that you're outside the law.
- tomschlick 11y ago
  I see that now. I originally missed that they were helping spy on their own citizens vs just other EU nations.
  - rbehrends 11y ago
    Spying on other EU nations is not any better. There are strict rules that target selectors used for mass surveillance must obey. Any target selector must be related to the prevention of one of the following: 1. An attack against German territory (i.e. war). 2. International terrorist attacks related to Germany. 3. International arms trafficking. 4. Drug smuggling as part of organized crime. 5. Endangering the stability of the Euro through counterfeiting activities abroad. 6. International money laundering at a large scale. 7. Human trafficking. Mass surveillance by the BND for purposes outside of these seven areas is not allowed, period; any personal data intercepted that is not related to these areas must be deleted. Most of the target selectors provided by the NSA to the BND did not fall into any of these areas.
    - tomschlick 11y ago
      Which is probably why they used the NSA to do it. NSA spies on the people and hand the Germans the data. Germans don't technically breach their own laws and both get the intel. Scary as fuck for our privacy.

emsy 11y ago

The sad thing is, in Germany the public doesn't really seem to care. They are still the same nation that follows allong blindly until the shit is hitting the fan. Of course, when the crash comes, the responsibility will be delegated upwards.

lawl 11y ago
I think it's that way everywhere. When I talked to people about it in Switzerland they often respond with something like "this isn't a problem here, this is $country_where_i_live_in they wouldn't abuse their powers. The NSA? Sure THEY are horrible, but in $country_where_i_live_in, nah, they wouldn't do stuff like that. That's impossible." You can point out that the last time they did (and got caught) was only 26 years ago [0]. They don't care. I'm not sure there's anything we can do about it. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_files_scandal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_files_scandal
bayesianhorse 11y ago
What "shit" is hitting what "fan"? We're not following blindly. Far from it. There is a big conversation going on and the government might fall over this incident.
- junto 11y ago
  There is a local election on Sunday in Bremen (state level): http://www.wahlrecht.de/termine.htm http://www.wahlrecht.de/termine.htm It will certainly be interesting to see if this scandal is of any importance to the voters.
  - bayesianhorse 11y ago
    I sure hope not. Nobody running in that election has anything to do with the scandal, but there sure are candidates which could harm Bremen a lot in the coming few years.
    - junto 11y ago

bayesianhorse 11y ago

What I know until now does not make me want to elect a new government. Really. I'm German and I follow the political scene. This scandal is bad enough. I understand the urge to slap the government. But that punishment would ultimately hurt our society more than it would hurt the responsible parties. I don't see a chancellor that I don't believe will do a worse job than Merkel, and getting rid of the two dominant parties only leaves inexperienced and incompetent politicians to do the job.

krylon 11y ago
I would go quite that far. But our political system is pretty much rigged to ensure that the government is fairly subservient to the USA. Also, intelligence services, due to the secrecy in which they operate, have a tendency (to put it mildly) of developing an agenda of their own which may not always be aligned with the government's agenda. The scary thing is, this headline does not even surprise me any more, it does not shock me, and it does not even make me angry. It is just another piece in a vast puzzle that adds to the overall picture but does not change it substantially.
- tempodox 11y ago
  But our political system is pretty much rigged to ensure that the government is fairly subservient to the USA. How so?
  - bayesianhorse 11y ago
    "subservient" may be a bit too harsh a term. In history it was far more profitable to ally with the US than with any other superpower. That goes double because especially in the decades just after WWII nobody would trust Germany with enough weapons to defend itself, and so there really were only two choices: Ally with the US, or be swallowed by the Warsaw pact. They did have the invasion plans, by the way.
    - tempodox 11y ago
      The U.S. wouldn't have let any country fall prey to the communists, so keeping Germany with “the west” was very much in their own interest. Hell, they used planes for years to keep even half a city (west Berlin) from falling to the communists. Your arguments don't convince me.

DyslexicAtheist 11y ago

this isn't surprising. Germans should be outraged since the late 90ies. The topic has been in and out of the news in Germany since long before Snowden. What the Americans did with projects like ‟Echolon” was openly known to most (albeit disputed by the Americans). http://blog.valbonne-consulting.com/2015/02/16/tinker-tailor-soldier-spy-us-industrial-espionage-in-germany/ http://blog.valbonne-consulting.com/2015/02/16/tinker-tailor...

wolfgke 11y ago
Many Germans were more or less aware of Echolon, but most thought it wouldn't be that bad (I was not among them from beginning and was talking against a brick wall (and still do in related topics)). With Snowden lots of Germans became aware that all these few alerters that were laughed down were right from the beginning.

CaptainZapp 11y ago

This article : http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/bnd-intelligence-scandal-puts-merkel-in-tight-place-a-1031944.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/bnd-intelligence... may be interesting in this context. Note that Der Spiegel is considered a top notch news source. Something like a German Economist in a way.

dgdsgdsg 11y ago
Not true
hans_mueller 11y ago
> Note that Der Spiegel is considered a top notch news source. By who? Certainly not by me ...
- junto 11y ago
  Out of interest is it a bad news source? I always thought it was more of a conservative opinion magazine? What are good news sources in Germany?
  - winterbe 11y ago
    http://www.tagesschau.de/ http://www.tagesschau.de/ http://www.faz.net/ http://www.faz.net/
    - amatera 11y ago
      Tagesschau? Really? To often they show pictures from wrong places and have a lot of hoax. Just google for "tagesschau falschmeldungen". I personaly trust Spiegel more... but thats only my opinion ;)
      - aluhut 11y ago
        Googling that brings you to Putins fans and islamophobes. Googling that with Spiegel brings you to Spiegel Online...well I don't know. I'll stay with the tagesschau for my daily 8PM news overview and look for details somewhere on the net avoiding Spiegel Online. Can't do anything bad this way ;)

tempodox 11y ago

It's not the first time to see collaboration like that. Time and again I find it fascinating how the members of the “surveillance community” seem to have a closer relationship with each other (across countries) than with their respective civilian compatriots.

junto 11y ago
It is the 'us and them' mentality. I know someone who worked in a government security service. Their opinion of the general population's ability to self-govern is less than positive. To be clear, I've put that quite diplomatically. They think we are a bunch of idiots who don't understand the bigger picture. Of course the fact that the bigger picture is deliberately kept secret from us is overlooked. They are self serving, but what is worse in the US is that the security services are basically a bunch of private firms, who have a vested interest in keeping the government spending billions of dollars. Many of those companies also have vested interests in selling arms. It isn't a good mix.
- saiya-jin 11y ago
  ...and we see results of this every day in news. "Follow the money" rule should be used all the time as default when trying to understand what the hell is going on in this world
Zigurd 11y ago
It's called the Deep State. Germans feel outrage because, up to now, the Deep State was meant to keep the volatile and dangerous (not to mention swarthy and Muslim) Turks in line. now the Germans find they don't really run their own country for the purpose of anything of importance to the US. Their "democracy" is as well-managed as Turkey's.

madez 11y ago

The dagger complex needs to be closed.

rmc 11y ago

A few weeks ago China was attacking a US company (GitHub), and many Americans here called for China to be kicked off the internet. Now the USA is spying on French companies. I presume the same people will call for the USA to be kicked off the internet?

pyvpx 11y ago
see "American Exceptionalism"
wolfgke 11y ago
> I presume the same people will call for the USA to be kicked off the internet? Or at least put the DNS root zone under international control (currently the root zone is under control of the Department of Commerce; cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_root_zone http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_root_zone).
- atmosx 11y ago
  I am trying to think how on earth can we avoid that in the future... Every country will turn into an closed-Internet Island. You won't be able to buy anything abroad without being taxed (multiple times), you won't be able to purchase remote services (even if they are far superior). Government will turn the internet into something unimaginably ugly. Then we'll have books to explain how the internet was once upon a time.
  - alfiedotwtf 11y ago
    Nothing is stopping you start a new root DNS. In fact, people are doing just that: https://bit.namecoin.info/
    - _lce0 11y ago
      This is great. Thanks for sharing! I really see that this is the right direction, however this requires that each user install something in their machines, which wont converge quickly.

kra34 11y ago

Rick: How can you close me up? On what grounds? Captain Renault: I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here! [a croupier hands Renault a pile of money] Croupier: Your winnings, sir. Captain Renault: Oh, thank you very much.

allendoerfer 11y ago

As a German I would suggest to just ask the NSA to leave the country. Additionally, I do not want Gabriel to become chancellor, but I would like to see Merkel and de Maizière (who already survived a remarkable amount of scandals) getting bitten by this. America is a friend and important to us, but even more are our ties to France and the EU, which should be our number one priority by a large margin. But as soon as you argue in that direction someone from an agency, who wants to play with the big guys and their big toys, comes along and argues how America is critical for our security and how endangered we are and that Germany did not had a terrorist attack yet just because the mighty US of A guards us. If he is good at his job, he manages to slip in the Marshall Plan as well. People seem to believe this, even if they know, how our agencies fail to prevent (non-islamic) terrorism [0] and that it was in fact the police on its own that caught the attempted (islamic) bomber in Frankfurt last week [1]. [0]: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/16/german-neo-nazi-security-service-scandal http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/nov/16/german-neo-nazi... [1]: http://news.yahoo.com/report-german-police-conduct-anti-terrorism-raid-detain-103609247.html http://news.yahoo.com/report-german-police-conduct-anti-terr...

mohawk 11y ago
Every time we hear about a new scandal in our German secret services, i await the news of another terrorist cell to be busted. I am rarely disappointed. Cynical me imagines a little cottage industry inside the secret services, always with a small queue of potential terrorists that their handlers can then push further on short notice. These terrorists can then be raided and presented to the public, reinvigorating our fear and making us think that the deep state is the lesser of two evils. And then, after a few weeks, it is back to business as usual.
- junto 11y ago
  The conspiracy nut part of me could also believe that they have a parallel stream of stupid and mentality ill ones that can be used to actually implement 'terrorist' attacks, but are supposed to be both directed, then contained and killed before they can inflict too much damage (or talk afterwards in front of a jury). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Sydney_hostage_crisis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Sydney_hostage_crisis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo_shooting#Ch.C3.A9rif_and_Sa.C3.AFd_Kouachi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo_shooting#Ch.C3.A9...

stillsut 11y ago

Remember who made the equipment Stuxnet targetted? Siemens. When you export lots of specialized industrial equipment with potential use in military/nuclear tech, someone is probably monitoring you. Oversight is good for everybody.

bane 11y ago

I don't understand why this keeps getting reported like it's new news, or that Germans seem to keep forgetting this and "learning" about it again and again.

justaman 11y ago
Perhaps the only way around cognitive dissonance is repetition.

filoeleven 11y ago

I posted this in response to a comment downthread, then realized that it's probably more appropriate at the top level, given the headline. Sorry for the dupe. That's not all the US is doing in Deutschland. "[T]he slides show that the facilities at Ramstein perform an essential function in lethal drone strikes conducted by the CIA and the U.S. military in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Africa."[0] So it is not just spying on the EU that is being enabled by Germany's government, it is the entirety of the US drone program that is being used across the Middle East and north Africa. This program, operating as it does outside of declared war zones, is very probably illegal under German law. [0]https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/17/ramstein/ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/04/17/ramstein/