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German Report: Obama Aware of Merkel Spying Since 2010
First time accepted submitter pupsocket writes "Yesterday the German newspaper of record, Frankfurter Allgemeine, reported that the President told German Chancellor Merkel that he would have stopped the tap on her phone had he known about it. Today, another German paper, Bild am Sonntag, quoted U.S. Intelligence sources that the President had been briefed in 2010. 'Obama did not halt the operation but rather let it continue,' the newspaper quoted a high-ranking NSA official as saying."
A textbook example of the Limbaugh Doctrine. For those of you in Rio Linda, CA: the Limbaugh Doctrine states the president had absolutely no idea that something bad was going on, he's just as shocked as everyone else, at the turn of events, but he's going to put a stop to it.
The president had absolutely no clue how big of the train wreck the healthcare.gov web site was going to be, until the day of the launch. As far he knew, everything was going just fine, and he was just as shocked as everyone else, how big of a botch it turned out to be.
The president had no idea that the IRS was harassing his political opponents. He read about it in the papers, when the story broke.
The president did not know that our troops on the ground in Libya called for help several times, when the barbarians attacked the Benghazian embassy, but someone in the military chain of command told them to stand down, and that no help was forthcoming. The president found that out only after the fact.
The president did not know that the Dept. Of Justice was sending illegal firearms to Mexican drug gangs. He was shocked, just shocked, to find out about it, in the papers.
Etc... etc... The president never has any idea what's going on in his administration. Who's running the government anyway?
Really, the story is that Obama was unaware of spying for 8 years! How on earth is that possible? 2007 - 2008, he was Chairman of United States Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs, and after that as a president.
I know there is oversight, but geez it must be really loose. You'd think that those two posts would let one know about things.
I used to believe that Democrats would do the right thing for We The People. I always felt the Republicans were nothing more than shills for the Already Rich. But...
I've watched as Bill "Mr Blue Dress Man" Clinton passed NAFTA and GATT where Papa Bush couldn't. This allowed the Already Rich to move working and middle class jobs to China (over 21million of these jobs last year), knowing that the only effect they were interested in was increasing the value of their stock options so they could make a killing on Wallstreet.
I've watched as Baby Bush invaded a country that had not one single thing to do with the events of 911... and... get away with it. Sure, Mr. Rumsfeld couldn't travel to Germany for awhile during the time they wanted him on war crimes. But that was quickly delt with and not one single person in the Baby Bush administration has gone to jail for what they did.
I've watched as Obama strengthened the Baby Bush-era spying machine... and... has not preserved the liberties nor freedoms formerly guaranteed by the Constitution and it's Amendments. By his own words (as printed in an interview in the Rolling Stone), Obama was to be the blast shield against the Republicans who want to burn the place to the ground. And yet, Obama has proven to be no better than his predecessors in protecting and guaranteeing the liberties and freedoms of We The People. Shouldn't a Constitutional Law professor have known better? Apparently not.
Freedoms? It's only an idea to Americans. Liberties? Not when you're scared or paranoid. In short, the US continues to exist as a pre-Magna Carta, pre-Habeas Corpus state.
Reading The Victorians reminds me that the role of Government is to limit the power of the common people and to enable the powerful elite. In this, the American government has succeeded. Supremely.
She's been spied on since before she became the German leader, the 2010 thing comes out from possible Keith Alexander backers:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24692908#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
"But on Sunday Bild newspaper quoted US intelligence sources as saying NSA head Keith Alexander personally briefed the president about the covert operation targeting Mrs Merkel in 2010."
Which sounds like Keith Alexander having a go at Obama if anything (or supporters of Alexander).
But what struck me is the sheer naivety of the woman:
"Mrs Merkel - an Americophile who was awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011 - is said to be shocked that Washington may have engaged in the sort of spying she had to endure growing up in Communist East Germany."
That's why they let her become Chancellor! if she was against America, you can be damn sure they'd be using all that info they have on her to her disadvantage to make sure she didn't come into power. It's not *her* who is the victim here, its the German they spied on to weed him out of the race for Chancellor. And the democracy they undermined in the process.
She should know this from the KGB control of East Germany that ensured only party approved leaders could ever be elected.
They're shaping their 'allies' to make them into 'servants'. I think a few of them know it. 5 eyes countries leaders seems to know they have to tow the US line or be leaked against, and maybe a few others. Some others, might suspect it, but don't want to seem paranoid.
Merkel needs to realize that her surfing history is known too, so is her emails, the public info she read that's known, the open discussions, known. Coutresy of Bullrun, probably even the encrypted one. It's not done for laughs, it's done for control.
Proven a lie? Obama himself apologized and the targeting guidelines literally had the very words that were being used by conservatives. You would be up in arms if this happened under Bush with an identical scenario focused on things like "progressive".
The IRS official in charge of the debacle pleaded the 5th amendment when asked to testify about the whole thing. You only do that because you don't want to incriminate yourself. The numbers for targeting conservative groups were overwhelming and it was one of the most blatant abuses of government power since Watergate.
Not a conservative, definitely not a tea party member, however revisionist propaganda to cover up a scandal like this is repulsive.
Did you notice the agencies that are supposed to provide "deniability" to the President are the ones trying to stick it to him here?
He denied knowing because that's in the script the President is supposed to follow.
Apparently the NSA no longer takes its orders from the President.
In fact, they're pretty sure they can live without him.
It does seem as though someone's trying to throw the POTUS 'under the bus' so to speak here, to save their own hides. If it's the NSA doing an official 'controlled leak' to cast doubt on whether he really knew or not.. and that's all it takes to ruin credibility.. then perhaps the NSA really does believe it is above & beyond any particular administration. I think that's probably been the case for many years. The FBI, CIA and most recently the DHS probably all feel the same way, having been given so much so much power. Re: the POTUS -- just like the NSA I believe he's lying through his teeth like the president before him, and that before him, and so on. It's just painfully obvious now in this particular scandal how deep the lying goes.
Somebody who uses 'Crauts' (it should be 'Krauts', btw) and 'Huns' probably lacks the mental capacity to think two steps ahead, but on the off chance that I'm wrong let me try to explain something anyway:
Us 'Huns' haven't started a war in 68 years, which is about 56 years more than the US can claim.
Why?
Well, I would like to think that we actually learned our lesson and are nicer people now, but something like that is hard to prove.
Another reason why we didn't is that the US took a somewhat novel approach after WWII: Instead of beating the defeated enemy to the ground and destroying his economy and so on, the US convinced the other western Allies to help rebuild Germany and help them form a viable democracy.
A beaten and humiliated foe will never stop seeing you as the enemy and the reason for his downfall. The Germans, on the other hand, learned to see the western Allies as (sometimes uneasy) friends.
With the membership in the NATO and the formation of the EU it goes a step further: The military, political and economical interests of Germany and it's former enemies are now intertwined. Starting a war with France or the US would hurt Germany itself more profoundly.
So letting 'the Huns' in the 'front freakin door' is an important part of making sure that we don't start WW3. And 'killing the EU' too might not have the results longterm that you're looking for.
American often complain about anti-Americanism in Europe.
Well, I can't talk about other countries, but I know that's not true for Germany.
We still see the US as a friend. But if a friend does something that you consider stupid or counterproductive or as hurtful for your friendship you will tell him, complain or get a distance for a while until he goes back to being the friend that you like.
That's the phase we're in right now.