Germany nixes surveillance pact with US, Britain
news.yahoo.com
news.yahoo.com
"He said the move was largely symbolic since the agreement had not been invoked since the end of the Cold War[...]"
So, as there are upcoming elections, I believe, that they try to appear doing something at least/at all, while not ping off the Americans, or the Brits.
And now it can't be invoked in the future either, which is great.
It doesn't matter to me if it was unused anyway. A large part of what makes me nervous about these sorts of agreements is their potential for future abuse. Same reason the UK pornwall is unnerving. Not for what it did yesterday or does today, but for what it might do tomorrow.
Symbolic does not equate meaningless.
This is the loudest "fuck you" Germany has given the US in half a century.
In 20 years time, we may look back at this symbolic gesture as being the first act in Germany finally ridding itself of the remains of US occupation.
This is the loudest "fuck you" Germany has given the US in half a century.
And I suppose someone with some diplomatic background knowledge may be laughing at all of this because the real divisive issues are not discussed as publicly.
From the article: >and would have no impact on current intelligence cooperation between Germany and its NATO allies.
No offense, but that's one pathetic "fuck you". "We're going to cancel an unsused cold war administrative policy while maintaining the current status quo on intelligence cooperation with our deep alliance".
Perhaps.
>In 20 years time, we may look back at this symbolic gesture as being the first act in Germany finally ridding itself of the remains of US occupation.
Germany's demand for inspection of its gold and subsequent demand for repatriation of German gold from the Fed was not a small thing.
"Bundesbank to Repatriate 674 Tons of Gold to Germany by 2020"
374 tons from France, and 300 from New York by 2020 apparently.
The Bundesbank is negotiating auditing rights with its partner central banks. Thiele said he visited all storage locations last year and the returning gold will be examined.
Some links in case you're curious:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/debate-breaks-ou...
http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/soziales/rechnungshof-forde...
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-politicia...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing...
"“In two months, we’ve brought 160 tons of gold valued at around $9 billion back to Venezuela,” http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-31/venezuela-receives-...
For anybody reading this, research gold leasing by bullion banks. In essence it's fractional reserve banking... and the issue is if nations demand their gold back, what if it's not there?
I'd say that the loudest "fuck you" has been when Schroeder didn't join the invasion of Iraq.
Yea, and im pretty sure that in this very moment, the German administration is using each and every trusted channel to apologise for that symbolic act. And hope that they still get their share of sweet, sweet unconstitutional intel.
If they where serious they should have scraped national ID cards
A German official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the cancellation would have no practical consequences.
He said the move was largely symbolic since the agreement had not been invoked since the end of the Cold War and would have no impact on current intelligence cooperation between Germany and its NATO allies.
British Foreign Office brushed off the significance of the German move. "It's a loose end from a previous era which is right to tie up," the Foreign Office said in a statement, noting that the agreement had not been used since 1990.
But the contract from 3. August 1959, that allows the US, US and France to collect as much data as they want, is still valid, and likely would only end with a peace treaty and end of German occupation.
It was very difficult to find a news that tells what contract was canceled today. The basically canceled, if I'm right:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesetz_zur_Beschr%C3%A4nkung_de...
So this cancel wont PRISM and the like, US gathering of intelligence is still legal in Germany.
Treaties, by their nature, limit the parties in ways which they would not, as soveriegn states, be limited in the absence of the treaty. The fact that there are limits on what Germany can do (and what other parties can do in Germany) under the Final Settlement treaty does not make it any less a "peace treaty" than it would otherwise be. And it emphatically did end the occupation of (East) Germany (the occupation of West Germany was ended by General Treaty.)