Only Snowden really needed to escape the NSA and he didn't go to Germany. By the looks of it, they would turn him over in a heartbeat.
Perhaps that's not directly the NSA. But it's a legitimate reason to have a home somewhere that does not constantly put you through such. And she's not the only one in such a position.
I agree with your opinion that the German government and agencies may not be the most sympathetic. A significant portion of the German public, on the other hand...
The Stasi are still a fairly fresh memory, for many.
Including, no doubt, for the chancellor, Angela Merkel.
"She is ... the first German Chancellor to be born after World War II, and the first post-reunification Chancellor to be raised in the former East Germany" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Merkel]
Also, as I recall, rumor is that behind the scenes, the German government was already clued in on much of what was going on.
And... various aspects of the German governments (Federal as well as the states, etc.) continue to be pretty aggressive about pushing spyware and otherwise insisting a unilateral "right" to do whatever they damn well please.
However, they are part of the EU. And border control is thereby not so easy to just zip up. Nor, perhaps, would the population stand for something so overt, as opposed to covert.
The German government was not just complicit, they were actively pushing for wider surveillance on their own citizens. Likely this is part of the motivation for the rumblings about European-based Internet services: the BND would have more negotiating leverage and power if they could directly access e.g. Facebook servers rather than having to go through the NSA.
"Concerned", perhaps yes. But not so much as to prevent her from not only joining the FDJ, but joining the local district board as well, and becoming its secretary for Agitprop:
These are activists who ostensibly haven't committed any crimes, but suspect they're under surveillance, or get harassed for being activists and want to go somewhere where the culture seems to be deeply and overtly set against state sponsored spying on the populace.
[1] https://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/soldiers-allege-laura-p...
Sure, Poitras detention had nothing to do with Snowden, Obama is a pacifist, Ukraine is in Africa, Putin is a democrat and I am Marry Poppins!!!
http://www.salon.com/2012/04/08/u_s_filmmaker_repeatedly_det...
Even if there is, I don't see how the circumstance that no charges were filed and apparently the authorities instead chose to take the route of (retaliatory?) extralegal harassment is compatible with the rule of law.
On the other hand, telling the investigators that she wasn't the person filming at the scene of the attack and then later recanting it is certainly enough to raise some eyebrows. Certainly not enough to convict someone of a crime, though, which is likely the reason why she was repeatedly searched and questioned but never arrested or indicted. She might call it harassment, but the authorities call it investigation.
If this was indeed an investigation passing usual legal requirements with the intent to build a case against her, I'd imagine that any responsible investigator would at the very least choose to do that as well. If they repeatedly searched her at the border (thus essentially abusing an avenue which had its legal hurdles significantly reduced for the ostensible sake of national security and being able to deal with external threats that the internal legal system had no time and opportunity to handle through regular channels) but did not choose to obtain a warrant or otherwise start a legal process that comes with the normal set of safeguards, I'd say that strongly seems to indicate they did not have enough of a case against her - or, in other words, that an investigation was perpetuated which according to traditional legal standards should have been discontinued.
Now, of course you may argue for the traditional standards/safeguards themselves to be weakened (e.g. by saying that while searches of one's home should remain subject to the same legal restrictions, certain parts of the government now also shall have the privilege to conduct some sort of "preliminary searches" which do not come with the usual safeguards to arbitary ends which might include a more formal investigation being started, at their full discretion), but this is not how I usually see this debate being framed.
I also have no idea if the FBI pursued it further and got a warrant. They're under no obligation to inform someone that they're under investigation. They may very well have started up a case against her that's still open, or may have investigated her and eventually dropped the case, or may not have done anything at all. In any case, they've never charged her with a crime and she's never been arrested.
It definitely wouldn't be a matter for the military police - since she isn't a member of the military she isn't subject to the UCMJ. The only reason they would have done anything in Iraq would be because Poitras was in a war zone outside US territory. They, again, would have had to hand her over to the DOJ for prosecution.
But what reportedly happened to her--since we're talking about Germany--reminds me of some of the Stasi's zersetzung: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zersetzung. Instead of enforcing laws, she was repeatedly harassed, seemingly with the intent to intimidate and destabilize her and her work.
If she was suspected of committing a crime, she should be investigated to determine whether or not there's sufficient evidence to show that she did commit the crime. You don't charge someone with a crime until you're fairly sure they committed it. Questioning her at the airport is one means of investigation.
Based on the descriptions given in the two articles I linked to, she traveled out of country 40 times over the course of 6 years, went to places like Iraq and Yemen, and openly hung out with Sunni insurgents and two close associates of Osama bin Laden - on top of already being reported filming at the scene of an ambush on US troops that resulted in multiple casualties. Maybe she didn't do anything, but the border control agents wouldn't have been doing their jobs if they didn't stop her and investigate.
It's one thing to question/investigate someone in conjunction with specific, credible evidence as part of a larger, legitimate investigation; but having your devices searched or being questioned repeatedly at border crossings dozens of times over six years--especially for someone at least occasionally based in NYC who could have trivially been visited by law enforcement while home--seems a lot more likely to be part of an intimidation strategy than a legitimate investigation.
According to the article you cite, she didn't admit to being the person the soldiers saw "filming from the rooftop" during the attack. But rather, to quote the article verbatim, "that she had in fact been on the roof that day."
Presumably you understand that these are different things.
Furthermore Poitras believes in a type of journalism that does not interfere with events. She believes in documenting what happens without trying to influence them. But I suppose that there is probably some law, some where that states that in war zones not disclosing information is a crime.
Finally if this were true at all we can ask why she hasn't been arrested. Why should she be stopped and harassed but not arrested if the government has evidence that this is true?
That's a good three hours to essentially get anyone outside Germany's jurisdiction if the USA really wants to force the issue "extraordinary rendition" style.
Given how much Germany (both government and populace) cared when it was about a German citizen, I doubt there would be notable outrage when it's about an American.
If Snowden had leaked usable information about microwave weapons and quantum computers the Russians would not have merely accepted him... they'd be willing to go to war for him.
Makes you wonder if the Snowden leaks weren't just a big PsyOp on the BRICS. ;)
This opinion is understated.
While I wouldn't go as far as to make guesses as to what the real classified data is now-a-days, I would like to point out that nearly all of the reveals thus far from the recent round of whistleblowers read basically like the transcripts to the cypherpunks mailing list over the past twenty years.
My fear is that everyone will gloss over that, and then continue discrediting such lists and their users far into the future as 'tinfoil hattery' and the like.