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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."

22 of 280 comments (clear)

  1. Sounds legit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So Slashdot reports that Yahoo News printed an article from AFP that the newspaper Bild am Sonntag heard from a "high-ranking NSA official" that something happened! It's like Obama told me himself....

    1. Re:Sounds legit by pupsocket · · Score: 4, Informative

      Yes, if Fox news showed topless women, we would have Bild.

      The other sources include Frankfurter Allgemeine and Der Spiegel, who are in the top tier of journalistic respectability.

      Der Spiegel reports that Merkels was on a list provided to Presidents since 2002.

      The only exclusive that Bild got was the 2010 briefing to the President by the senior NSA officials.

      You know, the ones who are supposed to provide the President deniability.

  2. The Pervert! by flyneye · · Score: 5, Funny

    Quietly spying on the womans cell since 2010, no one else knew but a few NSA lackeys. Even they couldn't see him locked in a dark office, alone, with no sound but the repetitive monkey slapping between his legs and the faint conversation of Merkel in his earpiece. " MMMmmm, I got your cigar Biatch! Daddy's gonna Farfergnugen your strudel, Heidi".....

    It's a Democrat thing, ask Bill or John or Lyndon.

    --
    *Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
  3. Credibility gap by PoochieReds · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why would anyone believe anything that Obama or NSA lackeys say at this point? It's too late for that. Obama's successor is going to have a huge credibility gap to bridge...

    1. Re:Credibility gap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If you like your doctor you can keep him.
      If you like your insurance you can keep it.
      My administration will be the most transparent ever.
      This is the moment when the rise of the oceans began to stop video
      Gitmo will close by the end of my first term.
      The average family of four will see their health insurance lower by $2500 a year.
      If we pass my stimilus the unemployment won't go over 8%.
      The US is the country that invented the automobile video
      What you are not seeing with the NSA spying is abuses of their abilities.
      via Clapper... The NSA is not spying on millions of Americans
      I did call the attack on Benghazi a terrorist attack right from the beginning.

      I could go on all day. Its actually harder to find things he say that are truthful then lies. Not sure why it takes what has been going on recently for everyone else to start seeing this.

    2. Re:Credibility gap by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Insightful

      To be honest, many of these things probably stem from delusional optimism and self-deception; a mental disorder endemic within Homo politicus.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    3. Re: Credibility gap by JWW · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not just optimism and self deception, theres a great deal of narcissism and megalomania there too.

    4. Re:Credibility gap by 7-Vodka · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How about recently:

      • Raising the debt ceiling won't raise the debt.
      • We have to raise the debt ceiling to pay our bills
      • If we don't raise the debt ceiling we will have to default.
      --

      Liberty.

  4. what a joke by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    IRS targeting conservatives? Nobody at the White House knew.

    Healthcare enrollment website has massive problems? The President didn't know.

    NSA tapping German Prime Minister's phone? The President didn't know.

    At some point, the American people have to start wondering if the President knows anything.

    1. Re:what a joke by __aaltlg1547 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Some corrections. The IRS wasn't targeting conservatives per se. It was targeting ALL political groups that were applying for tax exempt status under new absurd rules handed down from the (SCOTUS) Ivory Tower.

      Healthcare enrollment website has massive problems, well yeah, I'm sure the President knew as much from press reports as the rest of us. But I'm guessing that his subordinates at several levels down the chain were minimizing the problem so what at the level of the people directly responsible for working on the problem looked like a total nightmare was regarded with decreasing severity at each level up the chain. Like this:

      webmasters: Website is fucked. Needs basic redesign that will take months to fix.
      direct managers: Website has major problems. Some elements will need to be overhauled.
      middle managers: Website has significantly underperformed. Some changes will be needed before it performs as expected. ...
      Deputy HHS Secretary in charge of project: Website is experiencing some customer difficulties. We are working on it but it might take a while.
      HHS Secretary: There have been some troubles with the website rollout. We're working on it. Should be fixed soon.
      President of the United States: ???

      Who hasn't seen pretty much this same scenario play out in their own organizations?

    2. Re:what a joke by TubeSteak · · Score: 4, Informative

      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".

      Fox Still Ignoring That IRS Targeted Progressives
      http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/08/21/fox-still-ignoring-that-irs-targeted-progressiv/195511

      The problem with a lot of the coverage on the IRS non-scandal was that the Inspector General's report did not investigate all the facts, the Republican chairman of the oversight committee was only selectively releasing information from the incomplete IG report, and then he got very pissy after the ranking Democrat on the committee aired out all the laundry.

      Guess what the facts showed?
      Spoiler: that the IRS was targeting progressive groups as well.

      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
  5. About what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How do you know the US is the good guy. Unmanned drones killing women and children in the middle east, psychotic banks out of control, eugenics. You sound so emboldened and brash about ur choices considering ur country is becoming completely satanic..

    And bear in mind that China and Russia already have an alliance to protect themselves from u. If the EU (inclusing France and UK) joined that - both have nukes - your potential list of allies will have dwindled and you could be alienated internationally.

    However, I think u just don't get it. It's not about u or me. It's all a big charade by rich people globally, to hide pillaging from their own countries. And American people seem to be the biggest suckers of them all in this regard.

    1. Re:About what by gweihir · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And if they are incompetent and stupid enough in their spying to get caught, then there are consequences that can easily be worse than not having that "needed" information in the first place. The claim they "need" this information is a bald-faced apologist lie. Spying on friendly heads of state is something only complete scum does.

      It is time to find out whether the US really does not need allies (deceptively called "friends" in politics).

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  6. All politicians are liars... by bradley13 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...but I repeat myself.

    Like a spoiled kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, Obama needs a good spanking. Amongst genuine "small government" and "limited government" types, this just leads to feelings of frustration and despair. The Tea Party movement seemed promising, until it was hijacked by the religious right. What other chance is there, really, to reign in the US government? It's no wonder that talks about secession and revolution are kicking up again.

    --
    Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
  7. The Limbaugh Doctrine by mrsam · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...the President told German Chancellor Merkel that he would have stopped the tap on her phone had he known about it.

    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?

  8. Wutend by Phoenix666 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I've been reading Der Spiegel for 25 years. I've never seen them get angry about anything, not even when Russia shut off the natural gas pipeline running to Central Europe to mess with the Ukraine and whacked Germany in the process. They're white hot mad about this. The German Interior Minister is talking about bringing the NSA to justice. The SPD is pushing to drop trade talks with the US unless Washington does something real about it. Meanwhile, Obama wants to talk about immigration and fly off to visit schools in Crown Heights rather than deal with this directly. Caught in lie after lie after lie about the NSA he owns this now, and he owns the consequences for the entire world if he doesn't deal with it.

    Consider, fellow Americans, what goes if Germany goes. That's NATO and the EU. That's all our happy European client states cheerily playing along when Washington wants to force the President of Bolivia's plane down and search it. That's an economy bigger than ours, a continent whose population is much bigger than ours, suddenly not playing ball with us any more and pushing back hard on everything. That's a profoundly different world for American geopolitical power that will have material consequences for every American.

    This, the government shutdown, the near default, the promise of more of the same in February, it all has everyone who has been on our team the last 50 years looking for the exits at once. The American government has proven it can't even get a website right; there's no way in hell they can deal with all of this at once. A fat, happy American middle class would have been a bulwark against it, but the elites have spent 20 years scraping out their substance. Most of us are running mighty thin. The risk of a trigger event, like the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand or the Rodney King verdict, bringing it all down is growing.

    --
    Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
    1. Re:Wutend by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Speaking as an American: that's probably what needs to happen. Our leaders are going to "manage the dialog" and attempt to weasel out of any responsibility unless their feet get held to the fire by every ally we've got. Unless the pain level gets cranked up high enough to effect the day to day lives of average Americans, those average Americans aren't going to do jack shit. They'll keep voting for the same two political parties, no matter how corrupt, incompetent, and irresponsible they are.

      I'll be disappointed if this leads anywhere short of a dissolution of trade agreements and cessation of cooperation on military and economic fronts from our allies. And I hope that's a temporary situation, and eventually things can be made right again. But for now, the only path to a less dysfunctional situation is by holding people actually responsible - like jail terms up to the highest levels, with "just following orders" not allowed as an excuse, followed by disbanding the institutions responsible, and starting over with a new system that's accountable to the people it's supposed to serve.

      So yes. Please. Stop playing ball with the US. That's what's needed to fix this clusterfuck. It can't be "papered over" at this point.

    2. Re:Wutend by ImOuttaHere · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

  9. Obama Was Unaware of Merkel Spying 2002-2010 by ciantic · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  10. Since 2002 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  11. Re:Germany sells nuclear tech to Iran by pupsocket · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  12. Re:Germany sells nuclear tech to Iran by nava68 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just remember Seimens (a German company) has sold nuclear tech to Iran.

    The Iranian nuclear program was actually started by the US "Atoms for Peace" program, Siemens (actually KWU which was part of Siemens at that time) was a major supplier for the Busher programme which was cancelled - ironically - by Khomeini who thought all weapons of mass destruction as un-islamic. The contracts were terminated with the islamic revolution in 79 and the Russian government (via Rosatom) helped build that reactor and other nuclear facilities. A lot of western companies did supply parts for that, not only Germans but also american companies since many contracts went through Rosatom puppets.

    I have no problem with what Bush and then Obama did.

    And if Seimens were to sell to North Korea, I say we start bombing.

    The French supplied Pakistan with the technology (CEA), the US helped the Indian program (notably with Uranium and Thorium delivered by the Bush administration), so go and bomb France and your hometown...