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German Authorities Lack Evidence To Prosecute Anyone For NSA Spying
jfruh (300774) writes "The revelations about the NSA's surveillance program caused particular outrage in Germany, a country that is closely allied with the United States but nevertheless found that its leader's cell phone was being snooped on. Nevertheless, the German federal prosecutor's office will not be bringing any charges against anyone, mostly because they lack enough evidence (Google translation). The decision is sparking anger among German privacy advocates."
People in power should have to prove their innocence.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Translation: The NSA has some information about their politicians that would be... Unfortunate if it was accidentally revealed in a trial.
I would advise Germany to mind its own business
I don't think it needs to, the NSA is minding Germany's business for them.
Summation 2
We have treaties left over from WW2 that interestingly were put in place. There is a Professor at Freiburg University who says what the NSA is doing in Germany is basically legal. He even claims that the German secret service can legally assist the NSA.
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/historiker-foschepoth-ueber-us-ueberwachung-die-nsa-darf-in-deutschland-alles-machen-1.1717216
We also have a quite unspecific exception clause in Artikel 10 (section 10) of our Grundgesetz (constituiton), that restricts applicability of telecommunications secrecy.
http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/gg/art_10.html
Is it a school holiday again?
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
"Ja, Ve investigated but der Amerikans undt Birtish vouldn't answer zee question and zee others vent all Sgt Schulz on uns"
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, leaders realized such a prosecution would open a can of worms that could lead to very embarrassing disclosures about German activities and complicity in the spying. No politician wants to be caught in that mess, and the spymasters are quite happy to keep working together while the politicians publicly denounce the spying for their own political ends. I would not be surprised if sone of the professionals are going "We have too get some of that stuff for ourselves" and "Holy crap. They can do that?"
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
The NSA couldn't spy and monitor in Germany without the close and widespread collaboration of the German government and German corporations.
What they are really saying is that they couldn't find someone to shift the blame to outside the government or the corporations close to the government.
The Nazi's what understood quite well? (check your possessive apostrophe)
I'll let someone else make the appropriate joke about a grammar nazi comment about real Nazis. So to feel like I contributed something serious to the discussion, I'll simply add that, whatever they understood about SIGINT, the Nazis were pwned by the English-speaking world too.
making this community exclusive inhibits the free nature of information and sharing information. People on /. always complain, myself included, that our media sources are better than the general populations' media and that the media of the masses is corrupt. How is the general population ever going to see our ideas and process our musings if people shit on them everytime they try to contribute...
Widespread NSA spying in Germany is actually a consequence of WWII: it's under the post-war agreements that US intelligence agencies were given nearly complete freedom. And why not, given Germany's history? Later on, it became a collaborative effort, in which US and German government institutions spied jointly on Germans.
Germany's government and corporations like the arrangement with the NSA; all those goings-on have given them the political muscle and cover to remove any semblance of privacy from Germany's own laws. The "crying" is just for the public, and blaming the US for all of this is just a way to deflect responsibility from themselves.
Coward, corrupt scum. Paid from our tax monies. I'd fire them if I could.
Wow, if this is the prevailing attitude in America, then the rest of the world needs to bomb you moronic douchebags back into the stone age before you do any more harm.
Go wave your little penis elsewhere.
God Americans are assholes.
If you want the power, you must pay the price.
This attitude ensures that we are governed by people that love power.
That's why I think we should have lotteries for political service. Once you hit voting age and legally able to vote, you are automatically entered into the service lottery and you serve one term and one term only in that office.
Once you do one mandatory service period, one can choose to volunteer to be placed back into the lottery pool for another office other than the one you served in.
This will take a bit of the money out of politics, end career politicians and I really think it would lead to a much fairer democracy and republic.
US prosecutes Chinese Generals and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Commanders on the slimmest, "guilt by implication and association" pretexts.
Bless the Germans, for having principles and integrity - unlike the Amerikan rogue state.
General Alexander and Michael Hayden are off the hook. Now, they face only the hellish void of their own souls.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
The Nazis had, at best, a limited grasp on SIGINT. They came up with a world-class solution, then stopped development, since their then-current ideas were so perfect noone would be able to crack them.
Someone should have explained to them that signals security is an ongoing process, not an idea....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
It was probably like this.
If you try that shit we'll fucking nuke you!
"follow the money" has gotten trite, but I have to wonder if the German federal government's decision not to pursue this is in any way tied to the large amount of German gold we are holding for them. As I recall, they asked for it back a couple years ago and the US declined to ship it.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
No, the USA "brings charges against" these guys. "Prosecution" requires a trial before a Judge and Jury. Which in turns requires a defendant who is PRESENT for the trial. We have no legal provision for Trial in Absentia in the USA (hence Kerry saying Snowden should "come back to the US to stand trial").
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
No, the USA "brings charges against" these guys. "Prosecution" requires a trial before a Judge and Jury. Which in turns requires a defendant who is PRESENT for the trial. We have no legal provision for Trial in Absentia in the USA (hence Kerry saying Snowden should "come back to the US to stand trial").
Barring the occasional executive order to dispense with all that inconvenient legal stuff... for example
If the grammar nazis and the real nazis put up a united front, they might have won the war.
Good. The Germans have earned their 1,000 year bitch status. In 2945 they can ask the USA to stop spying.
How has asking the fox to guard the henhouse worked out historically? Good for the hens?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Considering how some European countries are so protective of their language, I bet they refused to accept the evidence at hand, because it was in English instead of German.
Aren't you Mr. High and Mighty? Way to take one douche bags comments, assume he's an American (probably is), and then extrapolate that he represents all 310+ million Americans. I wouldn't say you're clear of the asshole label yourself.
We know the NSA eavesdropped on Merkel, it's been admitted, essentially. The more interesting thing to ponder is, was it just one instance of listening to a single call, or has the NSA been listening in on pretty much ALL her calls? I think we know the answer to that. And, is Merkel the only world leader, person of importance, etc., being monitored? I think we know the answer to that, too. Pretty much EVERY world leader, and person of importance is being monitored as long as they are able to, and there's little doubt anyone they can't listen in on is particularly interesting just for that reason alone and gets extra attention. In any event, those who can't be monitored are few and far between.
When a new US President enters office, he's briefed by the intelligence community about all the interesting things known around the world that are not common knowledge. Of course, some of those things are probably bogus because anyone with any brains figures they're being spied upon and the best way to deal with that is to make use of it by feeding it with disinformation. Be that as it may, any President thinks he knows far more about the goings on in this world than the American public (and he probably does, that's not really saying much). The President undoubtedly knows enough to have a jump on the stock market, if he wants it, by knowing what moves world leaders are about to make. And the American public is then expected to be knowledgeable enough to vote intelligently? No, this excess information has turned the American government into a cynical paternalistic and tyrannical force, that more accessible health care, a little bit of social security, lower taxes, television and ready access to guns is supposed to fix. Sorry, but that's just not enough to make it any less cynical, less paternalistic, or less tyrannical.
Of course, supposedly no hard evidence or witnesses.
The general attorney is part of the ministry of justice ... Merkel and other leading politicians have made it clear they do not see any reason to prosecute the U.S. for the privacy invasion the NSA has committed ... now, the general attorney decides there's not enough evidence. Go figure.
All lying bastards ... too bad the general public does not understand (or care) what most politicians are doing ...
Interestingly or not; anti-American-spying sentiment in various countries on the European continent were at their highest a week before the Maidan Square protests. Same time, the Russian Navy was the only thing stopping a full-on Israeli backed assault on Syria (the Russian ships were to receive Syrian chemweapons for disposal in line with Oslo).
Over the last two decades or so, the americans window into European policy (in terms of the war on weed) was through Sweden. America, through that window, prevented legalisation efforts on numerous occasions over the years. The same window is being used to attack Snowdon and wikileaks, in turn, attacking the freedoms of all Peoples on (and off) the European continent.
So the Israelis want a war with Syria or Iran, and to that end, we all have to be considered "turd errists", because then they can justify their AMDOCS phonetaps, their AKAMAI packet-exchange filtering, and all the other data-hoards they amassed. When the public realise we`re all getting shafted, and bring contention against their data-misdeeds, they foment a "crisis" in the Ukraine.
Germany is an old dog, been beaten, bled within an inch of it`s life, but not put down; the hardworking nature of the German folk has been conducive to savings rather than debt, and they buy cars and homes outright, rather than take loans. That's why the subprime didn't hit them; but the "eurocrisis", that hits out like when the proverbial hits the fan. For the yankees to NOT SPY ON EVERYONE would be akin to letting the countries` Peoples be FREE. So they had to do it, and cover it up.
If the French right wing, or the BNP ever found out that the Israelis have been touting them as "tud errists" to be eternally spied on, well then, the Ukrainians would never wanna join the jEUROCRAZY CLUB.
If you wanna learn about the all-intrusive surveillance-state, ask the Palestinians.
There are so very many responses available. Just off the top of my head --
- Call the US ambassador and make a formal request for the names of individuals involved in the spying.
- Bar US companies from selling products and services to the German government or any German company involved with critical infrastructure (e.g. telecoms).
- Bring lawsuits in the US court system.
- Bring suits in the appropriate international forums for trade violations and violations of basic human rights.
- Issue warrants against key US individuals. Detain them upon entry anywhere in the EU.
Point is, if they wanted to make a real stink they could. Since they aren't, they must privately be fine with what the NSA and Obama's court jesters are doing.
No, the USA "brings charges against" these guys. "Prosecution" requires a trial before a Judge and Jury. Which in turns requires a defendant who is PRESENT for the trial. We have no legal provision for Trial in Absentia in the USA (hence Kerry saying Snowden should "come back to the US to stand trial").
No, the USA simply sends drones to kill unwanted persons without any of that.
screw that, the germans should bring in obama and have him tried and hung. or gas chamber if you prefer
Kerry is a windbag, completely unsuitable to the task of real diplomacy however appropos his pseudo-aristocratic demeanor may appear to those who desire a return to the good ol' daze of American Exceptionalism. The louder he and Hilary cry out in the name of moral outrage (whether in Libya, Nigeria, China, Sudan or Israel) the more obviously the administration seeks to avoid financially costly engagements, anywhere.
Afghnistan and Iraq have taken an undeniable toll on the economics of our war-bound state, revealing the true genius of isolationism. Waiting 'til the end of the great European wars were in sight and entering just in time to claim victory played out well. By comparison, leading a charge, even in retaliation against a non-state actor, created havoc in terms of domestic economics. But what is nationalism if it can't be used it cynically by those who exist on government services contracts, particularly when theater of war operations drive up costs so dramatically, oversight is all but nonexistent and the risk of being dunned for fraud or failure to perform so low.
The only thing we have to show for our multi-trillion dollar investment in failed aggression is a new bogeyman and nebulous characterization of villainous activity that war mongers may use in order to justify an increasingly costly and technologically complex war machine, a return to Rumsfeld's leaner, meaner techno-heavy military architecture. Terrorism has replaced Totalitarianism as the new arch nemesis. Long live the new arch nemesis!
Heaven forbid we redirect spending from militancy toward solutions to the foreseeable and real threats inherent in avoiding the unmanageable consequence of irresponsible industrial activity or managing the avoidable damage to the ecological systems upon which we all depend.
Have faith, sayeth the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, American Crossroads and Citizens for a New American Prosperity, mercenaries all.
The fact that Snowden claimed it happened isn't proof.
For what? For the spying that W and the neo-cons did back in the mid 00's?
From neo-nazis to neo-cons, you still have the same warped ideas and logic.
How soone before fucks like you scream that jews and/or blacks screwed over America? Oh wait. You have been here doing it all along.
... and so is the NSA... see the conflict of interest?
I wonder why the poor, hard done by Jews were so desperate to go and live in GERMANY, after the German people have voted Hitler into power, so he could rid Germany of the Jews in the first place? Can't they stand living among their own kind? I wonder why...
Yes, if for no other reason than because he knew about it and had the power to stop it, yet did nothing. Obama even advanced the program, heck Obama even began and admitted to the use of programs using unmanned drones to carry out assassinations during peace time. How is that what W did, what W did is not right either, but you do not get to pick the guy you like and absolve him of any wrong doing because the guy before him also did it. That is like saying I was driving 120mph in school zone just as school let out, ya I hit 3 kids but I am blame free because that guy in front of me did it before I did.
The whole practice of blaming the guy before you never made any sense to me. You can only do that if you were both unaware of what was being done, or as soon as you became aware you did everything within your power to end it, and rectify the situation. If neither of those conditions are true then you are just as much to blame as the guy before you, and if you knowingly make it worse then you are even more to blame than he was.
Suing for spying? I would expect that type of thing to be an American invention.
Table-ized A.I.
sNOwden confessed already to spying. Start with him.
Such utter nonsense. One of the main reasons the Nazi's lost the war was precisely because they didn't secure their communications.