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

http://www.france24.com/en/20110104-france-industrial-espion...

I don't think Germany considers the EU as its number one priority. There may be a number of reasons, namely: a) The growth in exports to China; b) The long-term European crisis; c) The notion that EU countries are an already conquered market, with little penetration growth left.

Regardless of reasons, Germany's behaviour is clear: The 2011 crisis presented Germany with a unique opportunity to lead Europe. Germany could have financially supported Euro-bonds, leveraging this support to mandate fiscal policy in countries that bought said bonds. This would have effectively placed Germany in a leader role for fiscal policy. Even if this had to formally be done by EU institutions, those with the money have the power. This had virtually no costs for Germany. In a success scenario would be a cash-positive move, as it'd be acting as a development bank: borrowing cheap on one end, lending with a margin on the other, with the added bonus of Euro-wide fiscal policy control.

By skipping this clear opportunity, Germany has signaled it is not interested in further developing the EU. I think this is a strategic mistake with a multi-decade horizon. The opportunity presented by the 2011 crisis won't happen again. Worse, there is now the very real scenario that monetary pressures, coupled with a Grexit trigger will breakup the Euro area and really weaken the EU.

So, for example, may not have the heart to get a bum vagrant or homeless person from your entrance, but you'd totally be okay if your neighbor or another entity went around making sure the homeless person was shooed somewhere else because you too feel fatigued by the reeking urine at the door to your building. Or, that pest rat. I don't like the idea of animal cruelty, but never the less, please get rid of that rat for me, I don't care how you do it, just don't tell me. I just don't want to see it again.

So that is to say, one might not like some things, but we're okay, so long as someone else gets their hands dirty in our stead. Just don't let me know the dirty details and embarrass me or my conscience.

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).

By who? Certainly not by me ...

Why is that necessary?

We live in a pretty miserable world if your only answer is "because everyone else is doing it".

Germans are just starting to realize that they are as much a US poodle as the Brits across the pond.

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.

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.

The outrage is because they help the NSA spy on German politicians and companies, against the interests of Germany.

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.

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.

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

The U.S. are the main problem here. So, assuming you are American, clean up your own mess before blaming others.

Our current government consists of a large coalition between the SPD and the CDU/CSU. A government in which neither of these parties take part would be a massive practically unthinkable shift.

No matter how much you care about this issue -- and keep in mind the majority doesn't really care about any issue enough to vote -- doing anything about it comes with a very high risk.

So no matter how much we may dislike the BND situation, nothing about it is going to change simply because there is no other party that can both be trusted to change anything about it and successfully run the government.

I think the idea that politicians primarily need to be experienced is a great mistake. It's not like they really run the government, which is really done by a huge number of government employees and experts a layer below.

What _does_ matter is integrity, a willingness to balance interests, listening to experts and aligning with the political position of those who elected you (e.g. a social democrat should probably focus more on the interests of workers - it puzzles me how the fact that there really are different interests that do not always align and that much of politics is therefore really about power is always ignored in favour of "experience").

And, by the way, some current German top politicians often _already_ seem quite incompetent. It seems unfair to just claim that members of smaller parties are more incompetent.

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.

I am German as well and would like the same. But then you see that there are no real options for the replacement of CDU (Center-right) and SPD (Center-left). The only other voteable (is this a word?) parties regardless of opinion are Die Grünen (Greens), Die Linke (Left), FDP (Liberals).

Anything else and we are moving into extreme territory. Here's a list: [1]

Do you really believe AfD could form a sensible government that can act on an international scale? And what's left then? Fringe parties and extremists (and ou may very well count AfD as such to begin with).

So then we are left with a choice of new people from the same parties. Those are well established groups and collectives of human beings. People who make it to the top are well filtered and chosen. There are also there because their actions tend to be predictable and as a result reliable. But this means that you will rarely get a real change going on if you just change people and not the parties.

Another far scarier scenario is that it doesn't matter who is in power. The scandal might only scratch the surface of the nature of the US-GER relationship. It is possible the German Federal Republic's foreign policy and actions are far more controlled and dictated by the US than is publicly known today. In this case, voting won't help to change that.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_G...

In a democracy, experience shouldn't be the standard by which to measure fitness for office. Experience in the law-making process, knowing the ropes of the political system and maintaining diplomatic standards: That's what members of lower ranks of political administration should be for (which for this very reason usually are appointed instead of elected). Politicians in leadership positions should be measured by their vision (or plan, to use a less high-flying term) for the country and integrity alone. Instead, most politicians in modern democracies have learned to navigate the political system and the media circus exceptionally well while integrity and ethics have been left behind.

Talking about political experience: Before Merkel became chancellor she was very inexperienced in international politics herself. As was Helmut Kohl, who was often underestimated by fellow state leaders (notably Margaret Thatcher) for his uncouth appearance and his perceived intellectual shortcomings. Both grew while in office with Kohl even managing the diplomatic masterpiece of the German reunion against all odds.

What's happening right now is just outrageous. German intelligence spying on German citizens and companies and selling that data to a supposed ally who in turn uses this data against Germany. Everybody responsible for this (including the chancellor) should step down and make way for a government that's willing to represent the interests of the people again instead of furthering their own agenda or catering for the interests of another country.

I am old enough to have seen a huge number of scandals coming out of the German intelligence services. I've seen Maihofer resign over the Traube affair and I've seen German intelligence snoop on privileged client-attorney communications and a lot of other bad stuff. The list of BND scandals is legion.

I would be happy to see resignations of any current and former Chief of the Chancellery involved in these schemes, pour décourager les autres. Let's be clear: the BND has pretty much intentionally broken several of the safeguards contained in the G10 Act, often with internal legal justifications that don't pass the giggle test (and would make only John Yoo proud). And the most recent revelations may mean they even committed crimes (conduction espionage for a foreign power, per §99 of the penal code, and economic espionage, per §17 of the law against unfair competition). This is plenty of reason for heads to roll. And sometimes, the tree of liberty has to be watered with the careers of intelligence service bureaucrats.

At the same time, even as an anti-fan of Angela Merkel's policies, I don't see what kicking her out of office would help (unless she had her fingers deeply in this particular pie). Intelligence services regular seem to aim at becoming a state within a state, and dismantling the power structures above them won't help; structuring safeguards so that they aren't as easily circumvented does. For example, in theory, the G10 commission (the watchdog appointed by the Bundestag) has broad control over what the intelligence services can do in terms of surveillance and can stop any and all surveillance measures at any time. In practice, however, that seems to have been circumvented by them not being told in the first place (or being deceived).

I can't understand your sentiment at all, especially when posting as "bayesianhorse". Don't you have any desire to change "your" country for the better? Do you really think Merkel is responsible for Germany's economic situation and the politicians of CDU/SPD are doing a better job than everyone else could?

Preserving everything as is like our government and Merkel does (just like Adenauer said: "Bewahrt das Bewährte") might work in the short term thanks to the strong economy and Schröder's reforms, but the complete lack of any idea or strong opinion about future challenges - always coupled with the way of least resistance - will come back and bite us.