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Expenditure Report Reveals Germany Monitors Skype, Google Mail, Facebook Chat

Posted by Unknown on from the blame-the-accountants dept.

hypnosec writes "The German Government has gone a bit too far trying to be transparent, inadvertently revealing that German police monitor Skype, Google Mail, MSN Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, and Facebook chat when necessary. The revelations, spotted by the annalist blog, come from a report of expenses incurred by the Federal Ministry of the Interior following a parliamentary inquiry. The report contains lots of tables and as many would find those boring, some highlights: On page 34 and page 37 of the report line item 486 and 265 respectively, represent decoding software for Google Mail, MSN Hotmail, Yahoo Mail for prevention and investigation."

4 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. Reveals too much? by SquarePixel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Isn't it good that the government is transparent?

    1. Re:Reveals too much? by Isaac+Remuant · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't understand why the modded you down.

      Being transparent (and therefore disclosing what can be seen as wrongdoing) is a GOOD thing.

      I did not like the "too transparent" suggestion that seems to lead to the conclusion that it's better to be secretive so you can get away with wrongdoing. Which is where USA seems to be going. No oversight due to never ending secrecy claims.

      Now, in this specific case, the revelation had little to do with transparency of that issue but of a mistake regarding government expenditure.

      --
      "Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world. " - Asimov.
  2. can't make you happy by v1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    lack of transparency: complain about lack of transparency

    transparency: complain about what you see

    I'd much rather be able to see that my government is doing something I'd like to know more about, than to know that they're hiding something from me that's potentially of interest to me.

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
  3. Surprised? by mholve · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm not. Any modern government (law enforcement or intelligence agencies) would or at least should have this capability. The real question is, do they use it without warrants, use it in an indiscriminant fashion, etc. If they were going after a legitimate suspect, they should have the capability to do so.