NSA provides German intelligence service with tools for eavesdropping | Hacker News Reader

NSA provides German intelligence service with tools for eavesdropping

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74 pointsLinaLauneBaer16 comments

Better translation:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/edward-snowden-accuses-germany-of-aiding-nsa-in-spying-efforts-a-909847.html

Again, this is not surprising. European politicians have just been caught with their pants down: on the one hand drumming up populist support by pandering to anti-American sentiments when the opportunity presents itself, and on the other being party to the alleged crime, or in France's case having its own de Gaulle-style internet-based signals intelligence network, which we can presume it shares with no one, unless asked nicely.

In real english:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/edward-snowden-acc...

This seems to largely be a non-story, actually.

What it does say is that the NSA provided the German BND with the technology for its international dragnet search program.

However, that program is not and has never been secret. Its basic functioning is spelled out precisely in §5 through §8 of the G10 Act [1]. This law is hardly uncontroversial, but it is not as though anybody can claim to have been surprised by it; its provisions are well known and frequently and hotly debated.

Regarding information-sharing with the NSA: The law allows the result of §5 surveillance only to be shared with foreign agencies under the conditions of §7a and §8. In particular, this means that all such information sharing has to be reported to the parliamentary commission and the commission has to inform the public about the amount of information sharing that occurred. For 2009-2011 (2011 is the year covered by the most recent report) no such information sharing was reported to have occurred.

Now, if the BND broke that law and shared information with the NSA without telling the parliamentary commission, then this would surprise just about nobody. But that's not what the Spiegel is talking about.

The part that is potentially interesting is the NSA establishing a new "Consolidated Intelligence Center" in Wiesbaden (to replace a similar center in Darmstadt).

[1] http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/g10_2001/

Yes, but now there is new proof, spelled out in clear German, and in a major newspaper on top of that.

The fact that a new NSA facility is being built near Wiesbaden, considering how unpopular the one in Griesheim is, looks like it has enough to it to be its own little scandal.

Why is it only bad when the BND works with the NSA? If it is just intercepting all day to flow across Germany's borders via DE-CIX it is potentially equally problematic.

Because the G10 Act contains safeguards that the BND is required to adhere to, but the NSA isn't.

- The BND has to immediately delete all records except the ones that are relevant for an enumerated set of purposes and has to document this deletion. Per the parliamentary commission's reports [1], the remaining messages are generally a few hundred annually.

- The BND can only share them with law enforcement for the prevention and prosecution of an enumerated list of serious crimes. Using them for other purposes it not allowed, and evidence obtained as the result of such illegally shared information is to be excluded by the courts [2].

- The BND has to notify anybody whose messages have not been deleted immediately that some of their telecommunication has been intercepted. This has to occur within 12 months, unless the G10 commission authorizes a deferral of the notification. The annual report of the parliamentary commission lists how many people were and were not notified.

The BND is subject to these constraints, the NSA isn't.

Furthermore, if the BND breaks the law, remedies are available; Germany does not have any recourse against NSA actions.

[1] E.g.: http://dip21.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/17/127/1712773.pdf

[2] BGH, 2 Str 731/79. http://www.ejura-examensexpress.de/online-kurs/entsch_show_n...

FISA theoretically had restraints as well (50 U.S.C. § 1803, Pub.L. 95–511, 92 Stat. 1788, enacted October 25, 1978), but it did not stop the process from being corrupted and automated. When the capability is there, there is nothing stopping it from being abused similarly. The Western country and alleged safeguards that happen to be in charge of said apparatus is really irrelevant.

You are misunderstanding. The question was why the BND sharing with the NSA was worse than what the BND does on its own.

What I was saying in response was not there is perfect safety against abuse, but that if the BND could share information freely with the NSA, it would render the existing safeguards largely worthless, because the NSA is not bound by the national laws of Germany.

The problem that makes this case even more dangerous is that the US and Germany are 2 distinct and independent political entities. Well, not any longer. The US has started owning Germany. If there is no real push back now, we should just go ahead and merge officially and be done with it.

My comment was more along the lines that only being angry when one country does it is very thinly veiled nationalism.

I agree, there is absolutely no room left for nationalism anymore.

The situation is so f##ked up that all citizens of all concerned countries will have to band together and let our respective governments clearly know that this will not continue.

> The part that is potentially interesting is the NSA establishing a new "Consolidated Intelligence Center" in Wiesbaden (to replace a similar center in Darmstadt).

"potentially interesting"...?

If I were German, I would burn that thing to the ground, right now.

I call such a thing the worst type of tax-payer funded cancers. How is such a thing allowed to exist?

EDIT: To me that's kind of like the start of bringing the Nazi past back to Germany/Europe. You know, that thing a good chunk of US citizens had to fight and die because of it, a few years back.

> This seems to largely be a non-story, actually.

Personally, I'm beginning to understand why Edward Snowden was ready to be tortured and die.

As it seems, all the NSA revelations are only that for general public. The allies knew about them and to some extent participated. Which explains how readily helpful the EU is in catching Snowden. Critical commentary from Europe is just to save face. When it settles down, they'll get back to business as usual.

I don't get why Germany (or any sovereign nation) allows foreign military bases in the first place.

I'm kind of curious though are there any size limitations on embassies or consulates? Could I technically have a really huge one of those in a foreign nation and run all the spying etc. from that?

> I don't get why Germany (or any sovereign nation) allows foreign military bases anyways.

Exactly.

What happens when the US gets out of control? (And with the power that the NSA has, that kind of corruption is not science fiction anymore.) There would be no Europe to try to push back and correct things. The world would be f##ked for real, this time.

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