Comment by allendoerfer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by allendoerfer | Hacker News Reader

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...

[1]: http://news.yahoo.com/report-german-police-conduct-anti-terr...

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.

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/Charlie_Hebdo_shooting#Ch.C3.A9...

You might want to consider adding James Holmes to that list

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Eagan_Holmes

Here is some info on the Sauerland cell of 2007 (unfortunately in German):

http://www.stern.de/panorama/sauerland-zelle-mutmasslicher-c...

Quick summary: The person the people in the Sauerland cell called "boss" and who organised the fuses for them was a "contact person" for MİT (Turkish intelligence org.) and CIA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Intelligence_Organiza...

Background:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_bomb_plot_in_Germany

Reality may be closer than you think

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celle_Hole

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oktoberfest_terror_attack

I knew of a SWAT member of a particular California police dept who said most drug raids (think: medium to large scale) were preceded by a phone call to the person they were going to raid to warn them in advance and to leave at least some drugs and lower level people around for show.

I have direct knowledge of at least one instance of this happening in California.

Why don't you sue?

Would you? That allegation, if true, would open a whole bag of hurt without definite, irrefutable proof. You'd need more than personal experience to push that through the court system. You need full, authenticated documentary evidence, from multiple channels before that charge had an ice-cube's chance in hell of being treated seriously.

This is one of the main difficulties of challenging governments in court. The proof of guilt needs to be orders of magnitude above that needed to prove an individual person guilty, as they can always divert the blame to some unknown, undocumented, "unauthorized" section of the staff. Scapegoat found, case dismissed, continue as before.

Depending on the evidence I had, I probably would sue.

The plural of anecdote is data. The important question is: "Data about what?".

Sometimes it's data about human psychology, sometimes it points to facts.

One complaint without evidence can be overlooked by every judge, but how about two independent? How about five? How about ten?

Even if you have nothing but eyewitness testimony, there is much value in filing an official complaint.

Technically a bunch of anecdotes is data, but is it good enough for a court? Eventually you'll need some actual proof.

> Even if you have nothing but eyewitness testimony, there is much value in filing an official complaint.

Some would prefer to do this anonymously, but then it tends to carry less credence in court. Attaching your name to an official complaint such as this could be seen as risky, depending on your trust in your local government.

Your stance is 100% correct from a moral standpoint, but may not pass many people's risk vs. reward filters.

I'd love to be proven wrong.

Sue the DEA, home of parallel construction? At least they aren't beheading women, I guess.

I should say here that I have direct knowledge of this because my best friend worked for customs (who was involved in the raid, who is involved in basically all raids within the 150 mile exclusion zone or whatever insane distance it is near the border) and was tasked with retrieving and delivering the phone number of the target to the person that made the call, and was present while the call was made. 1) I am nowhere in the chain of people on either side of that raid, 2) This happened several years ago and my best friend no longer works for customs, 3) This is not even the shocking kind of thing that happens in the course of the US government conducting its business. While outrageous and almost unbelievable, the real shocking stuff is what customs and border patrol (CBP) can do within that 150-mile exclusion zone (or whatever it is these days, 300, 500, who knows). This is why all local and federal law enforcement raids are accompanied by customs people, since they have the power to do whatever they want, literally, without a warrant. So the raid technically becomes LEOs "escorting" customs officials. Srs bns.

If that is true, that member of the SWAT team should come forward. Leak this info well documented to the public.

I wouldn't be so casual with France. Unlike the NSA, they practice economic/industrial espionage, and they practice it against Germany[1].

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

And the U.S. http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/02/espionage-moi/

The NSA engages in industrial espionage: http://www.bbc.com/news/25907502

I believe the key difference here is gathering information on technologies for national security benefit versus gathering information to be used to benefit French businesses.

I think it's naive to trust that the USA is using the NSA's surveillance capabilities for just security and not economic gain:

From http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nsa-hacked-email-a...

"In the space of a single year, according to the internal documents, this operation produced 260 classified reports that allowed US politicians to conduct successful talks on political issues and to plan international investments."

IIRC there are laws saying that any commercially relevant information obtained by NSA is supposed to be forwarded to domestic businesses.

> ... but even more are our ties to France and the EU, which should be our number one priority by a large margin.

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.

I think you have to understand that lots of people are "conflicted". By that i mean while some people personally might find something tasteless, they never the less can find usefulness and justification, just as long as someone else does the dirty work for them.

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.

It's not that easy - I think they would need to ask the US military as a whole to leave.

If anything Germany is moving closer to the NSA because they want to be part of the five eyes.

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