Slashdot Mirror

Re " what to think of the fact that"
"German government to use Trojan spyware to monitor citizens"
http://ll.dw.de/en/german-gove...
"..monitor ongoing chats and conversations."
Different nations have different ideas about what their network users can do and what a gov will do.

http://akademie.dw.de/digitals...

You may be right.

https://www.theguardian.com/te...

Or not

http://www.pcworld.com/article...

or ... you can see for yourself

https://panopticlick.eff.org/

No one may be disadvantaged or favoured because of his gender, ancestry, race, language, motherland, land of origin, faith/religion, religious or political "ideology".

Unfortunately, that's just a bunch of words on paper. Germany's actual record on discrimination and intolerance continues to be dismal.

http://www.spiegel.de/internat...

http://www.dw.de/european-body...

Aside from a Snowden statue going up in Berlin, there is considerable open discussion outside the U.S. among allied citizens. If the news outlets you frequent didn't even mention the statue, consider including additional outside sources. Will there be some return to shortwave radio to bring more untracked unfiltered new reading to the U.S.?

Some abroad are doing more than going through the motions of groaning about what has been happening.

http://www.dw.de/german-parlia...

http://www.dw.de/more-nsa-keyw...

http://www.dw.de/search/englis...

They're also more openly discussing such things as trade deals that would promote corporations suing states over policy that doesn't maximize profits.

http://www.dw.de/free-trade-de...

They apparently still have healthy free media.

Aside from a Snowden statue going up in Berlin, there is considerable open discussion outside the U.S. among allied citizens. If the news outlets you frequent didn't even mention the statue, consider including additional outside sources. Will there be some return to shortwave radio to bring more untracked unfiltered new reading to the U.S.?

Some abroad are doing more than going through the motions of groaning about what has been happening.

http://www.dw.de/german-parlia...

http://www.dw.de/more-nsa-keyw...

http://www.dw.de/search/englis...

They're also more openly discussing such things as trade deals that would promote corporations suing states over policy that doesn't maximize profits.

http://www.dw.de/free-trade-de...

They apparently still have healthy free media.

Aside from a Snowden statue going up in Berlin, there is considerable open discussion outside the U.S. among allied citizens. If the news outlets you frequent didn't even mention the statue, consider including additional outside sources. Will there be some return to shortwave radio to bring more untracked unfiltered new reading to the U.S.?

Some abroad are doing more than going through the motions of groaning about what has been happening.

http://www.dw.de/german-parlia...

http://www.dw.de/more-nsa-keyw...

http://www.dw.de/search/englis...

They're also more openly discussing such things as trade deals that would promote corporations suing states over policy that doesn't maximize profits.

http://www.dw.de/free-trade-de...

They apparently still have healthy free media.

Aside from a Snowden statue going up in Berlin, there is considerable open discussion outside the U.S. among allied citizens. If the news outlets you frequent didn't even mention the statue, consider including additional outside sources. Will there be some return to shortwave radio to bring more untracked unfiltered new reading to the U.S.?

Some abroad are doing more than going through the motions of groaning about what has been happening.

http://www.dw.de/german-parlia...

http://www.dw.de/more-nsa-keyw...

http://www.dw.de/search/englis...

They're also more openly discussing such things as trade deals that would promote corporations suing states over policy that doesn't maximize profits.

http://www.dw.de/free-trade-de...

They apparently still have healthy free media.

Drug smugglers in Europe managed to deliver 400kg of cocaine to the Aldi supermarket chain in Berlin. So apparently not all drug smugglers are good at moving their contraband.

Aldi supermarket workers find record cocaine stash in banana boxes

'Allo? Polizei? Ve bin finden der... four... five... six... er, FOUR hundred kilos von der cocaine!'

Drug smugglers in Europe managed to deliver 400kg of cocaine to the Aldi supermarket chain in Berlin. So apparently not all drug smugglers are good at moving their contraband.

Aldi supermarket workers find record cocaine stash in banana boxes

the situations are very different.

You think so? consider this, for instance. And this too. And this. No appeasement? Hardly. You just don't see it in the news. You'll read more about it in the histories when this behavior is revealed as part of the present diplomatic pattern, and what it led to is in the rear view mirror. Just as we did with Nazi Germany.

It's a shell game. Nothing is quite what it seems, and sure as little green apple seeds make little green apples, no one is eager to tell the public what is actually going on.

The only plus is in the constant new funding, new missions and expansion.
Why just support other mil and gov needs as requested when the NSA can now plan and run the operation.
NSA 'totalitarian,' ex-staffer tells German parliament
http://www.dw.de/nsa-totalitar...
Binney: 'The NSA's main motives: power and money'
http://www.dw.de/binney-the-ns...
"Money. It takes a lot of money, you have to build up Bluffdale [the location of the NSA's data storage center, in Utah] to store all the data. If you collect all the data, you've got to store it, you have to hire more people to analyze it, you have to hire more contractors, managers to manage the flow. You have to start a big data initiative. It's an empire. Look at what they've built! Have you ever looked around all the buildings they've built up because of 9/11?"
The world now understands the state of the art junk crypto for free or for sale from trusted brand :)

The only plus is in the constant new funding, new missions and expansion.
Why just support other mil and gov needs as requested when the NSA can now plan and run the operation.
NSA 'totalitarian,' ex-staffer tells German parliament
http://www.dw.de/nsa-totalitar...
Binney: 'The NSA's main motives: power and money'
http://www.dw.de/binney-the-ns...
"Money. It takes a lot of money, you have to build up Bluffdale [the location of the NSA's data storage center, in Utah] to store all the data. If you collect all the data, you've got to store it, you have to hire more people to analyze it, you have to hire more contractors, managers to manage the flow. You have to start a big data initiative. It's an empire. Look at what they've built! Have you ever looked around all the buildings they've built up because of 9/11?"
The world now understands the state of the art junk crypto for free or for sale from trusted brand :)

Seriously? The old self-loathing OMG-I-hate-my-country-because-we're-all-so-fat! trope? What are you, a sophomore in his first PoliSci class?

Lookit - you're dead-wrong in that this is somehow just an American thing: Europe and many parts of Asia(!) are seeing a large rise in obesity as well.

This isn't a national thing, it's a side-effect caused by an overall rising standard of living within any given culture. The short version: If you're not forced to skip meals and not forced to sweat your ass off just to put food on the table, you're going to have a surfeit of calories, and neither your metabolism or hunger mechanism got the memo.

Now if you're that worried about folks whose physiological evolution hasn't caught up to relative prosperity, then crash the global economy and drive civilization back into the dark ages. Otherwise, dude, grow up already... this is much simpler (and at the same time more complex) than you think.

From the press :
The latest Cygnus launch strengthens America's public-private space partnership, lessens the country's reliance on Russian space technologies, and may just include the future of space Nutrition. ...
The just-launched Antares rocket was a team effort between Orbital and the Ukrainian Yuzhnoye Design Bureau, which designed rockets for the Soviet Union.

Ukrainian rockets: You break it, you own it.

And you think altruism is purely the cause?

More likely, Cuba is using health care politically:

"Cuba is doing this first and foremost to polish its political image, secondly for economic reasons, and thirdly, so that countries that have received their help will vote in Cuba's favor in international forums like the United Nations," Guedes [a Cuban dissident and exile] told DW.

Of course, money's also a motive, especially considering the economic sanctions still in place against Cuba:

The government in Havana earns more than six billion euros a year ($7.6 billion) through these doctors, because only a fraction of what the doctors cost these foreign nations are paid out in their salaries.

Brazil pays Havana 3,100 euros per doctor per month. Only because of pressure from Brazil's government do these doctors now get at least 900 euros per month. According to WHO representative Di Fabio, the Cuban government receives a daily flat rate of 190 euros per helper.

Sure, I'd love to see Cuba join the world as a serious economic player, but not so much that I'll ignore the other reasons why Cuba has recently been exporting more medical care than cigars.

Nations can just use their number stations. One time pads and decades of very safe trusted sleeper agents are promoted.
Signals gathering expects the world to be using this generations ww2 ENIGMA like network over decades - tame telco crypto networks and internet will bring back lots of useful data as all other nations are not careful.
The interview with whistleblower William Binney: 'The NSA's main motives: power and money' (19.08.2014)
http://www.dw.de/binney-the-ns...
"Money. It takes a lot of money, you have to build up Bluffdale [the location of the NSA's data storage center, in Utah] to store all the data. If you collect all the data, you've got to store it, you have to hire more people to analyze it, you have to hire more contractors, managers to manage the flow. You have to start a big data initiative. It's an empire. Look at what they've built!"
Face to face, holidays, dual citizens, smart people invited in by rushed digital clearances. Clearances issued for a contractor to bring in expert staff.
Other nations have no need for their own to use the "Treasure Mapped" internet in any interesting ways.

Re 'change in our freedoms?"
"It takes a lot of money, you have to build up Bluffdale [the location of the NSA's data storage center, in Utah] to store all the data. If you collect all the data, you've got to store it, you have to hire more people to analyze it, you have to hire more contractors, managers to manage the flow. You have to start a big data initiative. It's an empire. Look at what they've built!"
Binney: 'The NSA's main motives: power and money'
http://www.dw.de/binney-the-ns... (9.08.2014)

Signals intelligence was to "collect it all" and then sort. The next step was some lock box law for phone records to get around parallel construction in open US courts.
The UK understood if people know about signals intelligence they can move away from telco products.
The US seems to hope that all people will enjoy the freedom of buying and using that next tame consumer grade telco product.

It gets and keeps the funding. Binney: 'The NSA's main motives: power and money' (19.08.2014)
http://www.dw.de/binney-the-ns...
"When you do the things that they do - dictionary select, like a Google query, you throw a bunch of words in and get a return. And if you do that for terrorism, you get everything in the haystack that has those words. So now you're buried - by orders of magnitude worse than you used to be. So you don't find them."
.... "Money. It takes a lot of money, you have to build up Bluffdale [the location of the NSA's data storage center, in Utah] to store all the data. If you collect all the data, you've got to store it, you have to hire more people to analyze it, you have to hire more contractors, managers to manage the flow. You have to start a big data initiative. It's an empire."
William Binney https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Its all about growing the NSA beyond its 1990's position in the US gov. No more just working to provide data to other mil and gov tasks.
The NSA seeks to run its own missions and be seen getting results, more funding and more political access.

This:
http://www.dw.de/super-suits-b...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...

I'll revise my statement... For now, Solar use in the most ideal of circumstances seems to be comparable, but there are significant environmental issues that need to be carefully controlled or the production, use and decommissioning of the components WILL be an issue. You just don't landfill this stuff to get rid of it and if you do, it's going to be a really big mess. Also, using solar in less than ideal locations, simply doesn't work out for the environment or the ROI.

Many solar panels are NOT highly recyclable and contain components which are highly toxic. The sad fact is that the more efficient panels are the ones that are toxic and difficult to recycle, but even the less efficient ones have their issues. Consumers, on average, have no clue about these issues, so I'm sure the "ideal" situation for handling these components will be the exception and not the rule.

We have clearly a different opinion of what rights are. If I have a right to make a copy and I have a perfectly working computer to exercise my right and then because I bought a DVD or Blu-Ray that feature is removed, the manufacture of those DVD/Blu-Ray clearly violates my rights. It doesn't matter if I agreed for that, I right stays a right. That is the same principle of why slavery is illegal, even if you sign a contract that makes you a slave.

That is also the reason why all contracts have a clause that if some passages of the contract is in contradiction of the current law, that passage becomes void. So, even if I agreed in a EULA like contract to disable my rights, my rights still are valid. For example, the first sale right is still valid even if you agreed to a EULA that disallows resale.[1,2]

[1] http://toc.oreilly.com/2013/03...
[2] http://www.dw.de/oracle-loses-...

"Notably: OECD received invitation to the elections to monitor them. They came under massive pressure from EU and US and ended up declining the invitation."

Wow, what an obscure twist on reality. The OECD observers were fucking shot at as soon as they tried to get near Crimea:

http://www.dw.de/warning-shots...

Being shot at and told you're not welcome is not even remotely the same as "They came under massive pressure from EU and US and ended up declining the invitation.". Putin and his cronies make statements like "But we invited the OECD, it's all the West's fault!" precisely because he's talking to the folk at home who can't get information from anything other than state outlets. I'm amazed there are people like you who do not take advantage of what is available to us in the West - plurality of media information to realise what actually went on.

You seem to have swallowed Putin's propaganda hook, line, and sinker. What's wrong with you?

A Tor developer? Being paranoid? Shocking!

No, I'm sorry, when I say "evidence" what I mean is, and try to follow along here, "evidence". Not anecdotes. Not scary bumping noises in the night. Evidence.

Okay, "When I flew away for an appointment, I installed four alarm systems in my apartment," Appelbaum told the paper after discussing other situations which he said made him feel uneasy. "When I returned, three of them had been turned off. The fourth, however, had registered that somebody was in my flat - although I'm the only one with a key. And some of my effects, whose positions I carefully note, were indeed askew. My computers had been turned on and off."

Who breaks into an apartment, turns off alarms, and politely tries to put everything back in its place? Do you want him to post video of agents too? Just listen to the man.

b. Holland, Merkel at al, aren't advocating they spy wholesale spy on their own citizens. Its to PROTECT their citizens from the creepy NSA sickos from peeping through their windows and reading their 12 year daughters emails.

Right, they aren't advocating that. Because the Bundesnachrichtendienst already spies wholesale on German citizens and ignores the laws against it.

Hypocritical much? Or maybe you just need to pick up a book. But no, keep complaining about America instead of taking responsibility for your own problems.

When you are threatened by a great evil that wants all data you have, your choices are to firewall yourself off or surrender.

Oh, please. You think America is the Great Satan libertarian nightmare, turning the entire world into a police state?

Every country with the capability is sucking up all the data they can. Including Germany.

http://www.dw.de/germany-admit...

The Guardian newspaper reported on Saturday that spy agencies in Germany, France, Spain and Sweden were carrying out mass online surveillance and wiretapping.

The organizations were working in collaboration with Britain, according to documents the paper said had been obtained from US whistle-blower Edward Snowden.

Britain's electronic surveillance center GCHQ was reported to play a leading role in helping countries across the continent to circumvent laws that limit spying activities.

The report said that Europe's intelligence services had forged a "loose but growing alliance," carrying out surveillance of fiber-optic cables.

In its report, the Guardian Saturday quoted a 2008 survey conducted by GCHQ of its partners.

The British report said that Germany was tapping fiber-optic cables, adding that Germany's external intelligence agency the BND had "huge technological potential and good access to the heart of the Internet."

Wake up. Germany is not doing this to stop surveillance. They are doing this to increase their control. You think the US is the bad guys and Europe is the good guys (or at least the victims)? No. The US got caught with their pants down doing something everybody already knew they did and everybody else already does, and it ended up being trumpeted in the media. Germany and other nations are simply trying to capitalize on the media exposure to take advantage of the political pressure to carry out their own ends which have fuck all to do with saving anybody from surveillance.

Excellent post and as far as I'm aware you're quite right, Neo-Nazism simply hasn't become a real problem in Western democracies.

As you say, "awareness" is part of the problem. You aren't aware, and neo-Nazism is a problem in Europe.

'Like 1930s Germany': Greek Far Right Gains Ground

Nowhere else in Europe are neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists profiting as greatly from the financial crisis as in Athens. As they terrorize the country with violence, the police stand back and prosecutors are powerless.

Marian Kotleba: Slovakia’s New Neo-Nazi Governor Only Latest of Right-Wing Extremists Emerging In Eastern Europe

Kotleba, whose organization has long agitated against Slovakia’s Roma (Gypsy) minority, branding them as “parasites,” once belonged to the now-outlawed Neo-Nazi Slovenská Pospolitos (Slovak Community) movement that praised the Nazi puppet government that ruled the country during World War II. Bloomberg reported that Kotleba openly admires praised Jozef Tiso, president of the Nazi satellite state in Slovakia during World War II, which dispatched thousands of Jews to Nazi concentration camps. Kotleba, a 36-year-old former high school teacher, has been notorious for sporting Nazi-style uniforms in public, and also repeatedly arrested and sued for spreading racism and hate (no such charges have ever stuck, however).

Russia: Far-Right Nationalists And Neo-Nazis March In Moscow

Neo-Nazis form expanding networks beyond national borders

The cooperation between right-wing extremists from different countries is gaining strength. Experts warn that this phenomenon could have dangerous consequences.

Neo-Nazi parties on the rise in Europe, Jewish group warns

BUDAPEST, Hungary -- The World Jewish Congress said Tuesday it is greatly concerned about the emergence of what it called neo-Nazi parties in Europe, singling out Greece's Golden Dawn, Hungary's Jobbik, and Germany's National Democratic Party.

A study presented at the congress's assembly in Budapest, the Hungarian capital, highlighted the links among the growing strength of such extremist groups, the European economic crisis and latent Nazi-type tendencies in Europe.
 

More people have been persecuted, hounded, ruined, tortured, burned, murdered, and just exterminated en-masse because of a book called the Bible than any other document in human history including Mein Kampf and Das Capital put together.

Just sayin' .

As long as your meaning is, "They were persecuted for believing in Judaism or Christianity," or for owning a Torah or Bible, very possibly.

Beginnings of Christian Martyrdom

In their very deaths they were made the subjects of sport: for they were covered with the hides of wild beasts, and worried to death by dogs, or nailed to crosses, or set fire to, and when the day waned, burned to serve for the evening lights. Nero offered his own garden players for the spectacle, and exhibited a Circensian game, indiscriminately mingling with the common people in the dress of a charioteer, or else standing in his chariot. For this cause a feeling of compassion arose towards the sufferers, though guilty and deserving of exemplary capital punishment, because they seemed not to be cut off for the public good, but were victims of the ferocity of one man."

WHEN EUROPEANS WERE SLAVES

A new study suggests that a million or more European Christians were enslaved by Muslims in North Africa between 1530 and 1780 – a far greater number than had ever been estimated before.

League of Militant Atheists
North Korea Ranked No. 1 for Christian Persecution
Persecuted and forgotten: Egypt's Christians
A Global Slaughter of Christians, but America’s Churches Stay Silent
Christian Persecution in China Despite Supposed Religious 'Freedom'
The Case Against the Nazis; How Hitler's Forces Planned To Destroy German Christianity

UNDERSTANDING ANTI-SEMITISM AND ITS HISTORY

The list is obviously much longer.

Since someone is practically certain to object along two lines, lets dispose of them now.

Yes, the Spanish Inquisition was terrible, it was also limited in scope.
The Crusades were a long delayed response to Muslim invasion of the Holy Land.

Snowden ally Appelbaum claims his Berlin apartment was invaded

Appelbaum ... is one of the few people with access to some of the data held by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

You tell me.

Though Scientists using the acoustic-ethylene method have not succeeded in proving that plants have feelings - which may come as a disappointment to plant-lovers - the chemical voices of flora allows them to distinguish between healthy and sick plants.

Plant is damaged, releases chemicals. Calling it 'crying' and 'pain' is a poetic interpretation but not really entirely accurate. It is a response to damage and is communication to other plants though (insofar as causing responses).

http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Kuehnemann/publications/

I'm assuming the 'Herbivore-induced volatiles..." are the 'cow chewing grass makes it scream" studies.

Venezuela's approach doesn't appear to be sustainable.

Venezuela's President Maduro to rule by decree
Ghost of Chavez Can't Stop Hyperinflation
Inflation, Shortages And Economic Turmoil: Venezuela On The Brink
2013 Index of Economic Freedom - Venezuela

Don't forget jealousy.

But anyway, I hear the European "union" is not a happy one.

Railing against the 'Fourth Reich': Anti-German Mood Heats Up in Greece

And someone is the family might be hearing the voices of ghosts of the past.

Germany shocked by secret service link to rightwing terror cell

And the "hired help" has caused some concerns.

Kohl wanted to reduce Germany's Turkish population by one half

Who can tell what will happen?

You don't think there are more possibilities than your binary choice? They can only be either looking for terrorists or "industrial espionage for fascist criminal gangster military/industrial complex profits"?

How do you know it might not have been for diplomatic intelligence given the growing possibility of the EU splitting up over the financial crisis and problems between Greece and Germany?

Railing against the 'Fourth Reich': Anti-German Mood Heats Up in Greece

How do you know it wasn't regarding internal policy discussions about Germany's recently revealed ethnic problems, one that will become relatively more important in the coming years?

Kohl wanted to reduce Germany's Turkish population by one half

Especially in light of the fact that Germany was home to one of the 9/11 terror cells?

The Hamburg connection

German prosecutors said the Hamburg cell consisted of eight members: three suicide pilots, three logistical planners and two others whose role remains vague, but who might also have become suicide pilots. The cell was active and embarking on the plot to attack US targets by the summer of 1999, the prosecutors said. Mohammed Atta, a wealthy Egyptian, is believed to have been a key figure in the Hamburg cell, but also the ringleader of all 19 of the 9/11 hijackers.

Or perhaps there was a concern about government links to neo-Nazis?

Germany shocked by secret service link to rightwing terror cell

An agent working for Germany's answer to MI5 was at the scene of one of the 10 murders carried out by neo-Nazi terrorists, the domestic intelligence agency has confirmed, fuelling speculation that the killers' movements were known to the authorities during their 13 years on the run.

Perhaps there is a concern about another country developing WMD with assistance from German companies?

HALABJA / ANFAL 1988 - 2013

in 2010 the German government stated in response to a parliamentary enquiry: “The responsibility for the events of Halabja lies with the past Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein.” Many documents and sources, though, not only suggest that German cooperation was essential for the Iraqi poison gas program. They also show that there was already some awareness about this in Germany back then. All the same, the relevant goods were delivered. ....

The German government is jointly responsible for the suffering of the people of Halabja. 70 percent of the equipment for Iraqi chemical weapons plants were delivered by German companies. German foreign intelligence service personnel had been present in at least one of these companies. Most parts to enhance Iraq’s rockets, grenades and missiles were delivered from Germany.

Since you want to follow conspiracy theories, how do you know that it wasn't a possible crypto-communist in the administration deliberately undertaking high risk activities with the US intelligence apparatus that were likely to be discovered, to expose it and cripple it prior to the end of the administration?

There are certainly many more possibilities than just the two you propose. The one thing obvious to me is that you are not a serious person.

I thought Snowden was just crusading for the Constitutional rights of Americans? But his actions keep disclosing intelligence gathering of foreign sources, and the actions of America's foreign allies, which their governments consider highly damaging. At the same time he claims to know all about China's and Russia's intelligence, but where are the disclosures there? Surely if he is an expert on it, as he claims, it must be based on documentation? Where is that documentation? Where are the reports on China and Russia? It's almost as if more than is claimed is going on. I wonder if we'll hear from his spokesman in Russia?

The leadership of NATO will never let their governments escape the NSA. The best that will happen is a very public telco rebuild. From one hub 'known' (Frankfurt) to link to the NSA, new domestic only hubs will open as national 'data' protecting loops. The contractors will have any new systems wired back to the NSA from day one.
"Comms giant pushes anti-spy network"
http://www.thelocal.de/sci-tech/20131014-52385.html
http://www.dw.de/telekom-hopes-to-stave-off-nsa-snoops-by-keeping-internet-traffic-in-germany/a-17154274
http://rt.com/news/deutsche-telekom-internet-spies-176/

I'm actually fairly certain terrorists don't blow stuff up during Ramadan.

Actually, they do. It often causes more moderate Muslims a lot of outrage, but militants often think that attacking during a holy day mean's that their actions will be more blessed.

Well I only just started checking out RT.com during the Snowden situation. They seemed to have better, more neutral coverage than US news sources. Although that may not be saying much since the US news sources seem like they are getting their articles written for them by the US administration.

Perhaps RT is usually more biased and made an exception for the Snowden story because you couldn't make up better stuff than that. I'm only talking about the written web site coverage. I haven't viewed any videos or watched their satellite channel.

The most balanced foreign news seems to come from DW and Al Jazeera.

I did find Al Jazeera's coverage unbiased as well. And The Guardian coverage seemed pretty good. I hadn't heard of DW before. I just took a look at their site and it looks pretty good. Is that Germany's version of Voice of America and BBC World Service?

One might get the impression you read RT's coverage of one event, contrasted it to FOX News, then just extrapolated your findings to all of RT and western news media. Do you ACTUALLY read the news or do you google for news that supports your opinion?

  - bets $100 you found first article that praised Snowden as a hero and said "finally, some unbiased news"

Well I only just started checking out RT.com during the Snowden situation. They seemed to have better, more neutral coverage than US news sources. Although that may not be saying much since the US news sources seem like they are getting their articles written for them by the US administration.

Perhaps RT is usually more biased and made an exception for the Snowden story because you couldn't make up better stuff than that. I'm only talking about the written web site coverage. I haven't viewed any videos or watched their satellite channel.

The most balanced foreign news seems to come from DW and Al Jazeera.

I did find Al Jazeera's coverage unbiased as well. And The Guardian coverage seemed pretty good. I hadn't heard of DW before. I just took a look at their site and it looks pretty good. Is that Germany's version of Voice of America and BBC World Service?

And in other news - Germany is going the other way changing to encryption of user mails by default: German companies to automatically encrypt customers' emails.

Two of Germany’s biggest internet companies have announced plans to make their email services more secure. This comes amid the controversy about the snooping practices of the US National Security Agency.

Deutsche Telekom AG and United Internet AG announced on Friday that they were joining forces in a project dubbed “E-Mail Made in Germany,” which would see all emails sent from the T-Online, GMX or Web.de services automatically encrypted. ...

Kelly dismisses critics who argue that increased cameras threaten privacy rights, giving governments the ability to monitor people in public spaces.

“The people who complain about it, I would say, are a relatively small number of folks, because the genie is out of the bottle,” Kelly said. “People realize that everywhere you go now, your picture is taken.”

There's a stark difference between a store knowing I am in their store and a centralized location storing all of my visits. And then there's an even further jump when it's a government doing that. I'm fine that I go into Gamestop and Gamestop gets tapes of me looking at games. I'm fine that I go to Chipotle and there's a camera on the cash register. I'm fine that I then walk by the entrance to an electronics store and I'm on their cameras passing by. That's cool, if they want to put together the odd footage they have of me going there, I'm not really concerned about that. And that's the stuff that ended up helping catch the Boston suspects.

I'm not okay when one centralized location stores that data and my complete movements can be tracked. If a Gamestop employee got my address from a purchase and wanted to search my house, he'd have only the time I'm on camera to do it. If my whole trip is detailed, it could be done covertly quite easily.

Decentralizing the stores of this video information has its own merits and disadvantages but I think there is a very small group of people that are uneasy with being videotaped at a grocery store by the grocery store yet a large group of people (once they think about what their tax dollars are being spent on) that would be uneasy about a government system centralizing this and putting individuals in charge of it.

What worked here is that businesses realized they each had a piece of the puzzle to solve a heinous crime. This commissioner's claim that technology exists that would have prevented these attacks had it been a government controlled and centralized effort is largely horseshit and what benefits that pretends to provide are insignificant compared to the possible evils it could unleash.

By the way, if this topic interests you then you should be watching Germany closely.

There are some very interesting articles on the "bribes-for-PhD" scam in Germany: In 2008 Time Magazine reported on an investigation into around 100 cases of bribes for PhDs: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1919339,00.html. One blogger claims 500 to 700 PhD's are illegitimately "purchased" each year by aggressive career-climbing German lawyers, managers and politicians. The blogger provides numerous citations: http://ktwop.wordpress.com/tag/guttenberg-fraud/. In 2011, the DW German news outlet called some German PhD's "cut and paste": http://www.dw.de/academic-consultants-target-phd-wannabes/a-14852460-1.

Addressing the main topic, I should add that I also have been using Al-Jazeera's Android app for some time now, along with those from the BBC, Dagens Nyheter (Swedish only) and Deutsche Welle.

I don't usually bother with US news outlets much any more, unless I follow a link to a story on one of their websites, or it's a local thing I hear about from relatives there.

Unlike America, European regulators take their privacy seriously.

No, they don't. European regulators like to cause trouble to US companies, while European governments and many European companies get a free pass.

No, they don't -- but I doubt the stories hit the US news.

http://positivepulse.co.uk/482/482/ (NHS, presumably, i.e. British government)
http://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/local/kingstonnews/9687652.Kingston_Council_faces_privacy_breach_claim/ (Local government near London)
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/uk/probe-into-airline-privacy-breach-16141298.html (British airline)

Of course, as with many local European issues, it's more difficult for me to find stories from other countries as they're usually in another language.
Here's some kind of summary from Ireland: http://www.algoodbody.ie/knowledge.jsp?i=1846
And here's one from Germany http://www.dw.de/deutsche-telekom-suspected-of-privacy-breaches/a-3357090-1 (German telecoms)

Take a look at other initiatives by India's ruling govt on mobile phones:

http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,16174440,00.html

The ruling party wants to promote phones when they can help it win elections. But it wants to ban them when its ineffectual governance might get exposed. The ruling party are crooks.

It may well be that the vote has passed but may not make any difference

http://politics.slashdot.org/story/12/06/26/2116226/eu-commissioner-reveals-he-will-ignore-any-rejection-of-acta

Especially as there appears to be a plan B

http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,16070495,00.html

It's a good win at the moment, but the war isn't won.

Where do you get your information? (links?) The local media seem to provide very little detail here, but go heavy on useless opinions. There is more depth elsewhere.

http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,16006008,00.html

Do you think Democracy needs an informed public for it to function properly? Ask your kids what's going on in the world. What do they think of the drought in the Koreas or eight countries in Africa? Who do they think is right in the territorial disputes between Japan and China? What do they think of the two cops that smuggled 20 pounds of cocaine over the border from Mexico? What do they think of the unit of the Mexican military that switched sides and joined a drug cartel?
Does it concern them that multiple coronal mass ejections hit the earth at the same time as the March 9 and 11 2011 quakes in Japan? What about the cleric that was teaching how to beat disobedient women without leaving marks?

Just sticking to music, what do they think about one country pressuring another about music? What are your kids learning? Do they know where places are, who people were? Do they know what an AK47 is? Should they?? Do they know how to cook?

http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,16006008,00.html

There actually are quite a few informative clips put on youtube, including some from media outlets you might not get on tv. There's also a bunch of nonsense. Are they learning to think critically? Have they seen old movies like Soylent Green or China Syndrome on Netflix? What kinds of things do they watch instead?

Do they know about censorship? Do they know about those protesting students killed in a certain large country years ago? Do they know about James Watt of the Reagan administration who said some radioactive material was so safe he could put it on his breakfast cereal. (No censorship here? See how much you find when trying to search for that one.)

Give them bread and circus... it just works!

What's you're definition of true entrepreneurship?

Specifically, high-tech Internet/software/IT entrepeneurship, since we have been talking about CS/IT degrees, pay attention here. I know Germany does very well in traditional manufacturing, but that's not what we were talking about and I said nothing about the German economy.

Apple: copied Xerox. Microsoft: copied CP/M, then copied Apple, and somewhere along the way copied umpteen others as well.

Yes, Apple and Microsoft's true success has come almost entirely from copying a few vague ideas 30 years ago. I mean, I can practically see the connection between a mouse and a $400B business with 75,000 employees! Thanks for parroting the usual /. bull, it's so relevant to the discussion.

Page, Brin, Yang, Filo - what they did is decide that their idea was worth dropping out of their PhD program, and their early investors and employees agreed with them rather than judging them for not getting a graduate degree. Semantics are aren't helpful here, either.

And bigot my ass. I work with 2 very intelligent and motivated German engineers, and we have discussed this very topic at length. Both of them are in the US because they wanted to work at innovative, fast moving Internet/software companies and they felt the opportunities for that in the US were (and still are) much better. In fact, both have co-founded and/or worked at several startups of various success; but that has been plenty enough success they own homes, have families, and have no plans to move back (and one even recently naturalized). In fact, a couple months ago he was saying he thought the traditional German educational and banking/venture capital/etc systems would have to undergo significant reform before you start seeing changes in that department...

But, if you don't want to to take the word of a second-hand conversation at face value, don't. Spend a couple minutes researching the topic yourself for the similar opinions.

http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,15126087,00.html
http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~jmueller/its/conf/amsterdam06/downloads/papers/Weber.pdf
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-03/19/european-startups-lack-ambition

Yes, I am a real bigot for pointing out a fact that many analysts, academics, and business executives (many of who are German, as in the above links) think there is a lack of entrepeneurship and development in Internet services in Germany, and the most likely causes are aversion to risk and too much adherence to traditional university educational system ("can't blame me for hiring him, he had a PhD!)" I just thought it was interesting that the GP demonstrated this attitude fairly well (and, yes, I think was a bit overly insulting to him as I was responding directly to his insulting comment on my post. Oh well).

Here is a short video of a lesson in a German school: http://www.dw.de/dw/0,,12165,00.html "Schulbesuch im Knast" ("Visit of a prison").

The video is in German, but one can get the sense of it. Kids visit real prison, real cells, eat with real inmates. After that the romanticism of a crime diminishes significantly.

Crime is not a game. The law is slow, sometimes very slow, but it will get one sooner or later anyway.