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After NSA Spying Flap, Germany Asks CIA Station Chief to Depart
The Washington Post reports that Gemany's government has asked the CIA station chief in that country to leave. From the article, which points out the move comes after several high-profile instances of U.S. spying on German citiens, including Chancellor Angela Merkl:. "A day earlier, federal prosecutors in Germany said police had searched the office and apartment of an individual with ties to the German military who is suspected of working for U.S. intelligence. Those raids followed the arrest of an employee of Germany’s foreign intelligence service who was accused of selling secrets to the CIA. ... For years, Germany has sought to be included in a group of countries with which the United States has a non-espionage pact. Those nations include Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
The Obama administration and that of George W. Bush both resisted such entreaties, in part because many U.S. intelligence officials believe that there are too many areas where German and U.S. security interests diverge."
Why didn't we steal something useful, like their plans/strategy for world cup?
...is it?
So, what's the end game here, for Germany?
And why chastise the US publicly when you could manipulate them through false information instead?
What are the implications here?
And yet their own intelligence agencies have no issue with sharing and working with the NSA.
http://www.spiegel.de/internat...
http://www.spiegel.de/internat...
http://rt.com/news/germany-nsa...
Germany's government was perfectly fine with the NSA's surveillance until they found out they were being spied on too. It's faux outrage meant to deflect people's attention from them being in bed with the NSA for years.
The Obama administration and that of George W. Bush both resisted such entreaties, in part because many U.S. intelligence officials believe that there are too many areas where German and U.S. security interests diverge."
How about getting rid of that United States base in Germany? A move like this would be in the right direction.
Did I mention that Slashdot should at least try getting world leaders' name spellings correct? Anyone also sees this unfortunate Merkl spelling in the introductory piece>?
When the Germans discovered that the NSA had bugged Angela Merkel's phone, Obama kinda sorta said, "sorry", and it looked like the whole matter would have been forgotten. I would have thought that Obama would have told his spooks to lay off for a while. But instead, it seems that he has racketed up the spying on Germany.
Can someone tell me what Obama is trying to achieve by this? I mean, there must be some purpose behind all this. I just can't figure it out.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Retaliation for Spying: Germany Asks CIA Official to Leave Country
Initially, there had been talk of a formal expulsion of the CIA employee, who is officially accredited as the so-called chief of station and is responsible for the US intelligence service's activities in Germany. A short time later, the government backpedalled and said it had only recommended that he leave. Although it cannot be compared with a formal explusion, it remains an unfriendly gesture.
On a diplomatic level, it is no less than an earthquake and represents a measure that until Thursday would have only been implemented against pariah states like North Korea or Iran. It also underscores just how deep tensions have grown between Berlin and Washington over the spying affair.
The USA's response has been something along the lines of "you expected us not to conducting traditional spying activities?"
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
First of all: Germany is no longer an occupied state, independently of what you think. Second: Of course Germany can do it. What will the U.S. do to retaitiate? Occupy Germany again? To what result? And is it worth it? Losing all the business in Germany? Losing all the taxes the U.S. earns from doing business with german companies?
Actually, it's the German population which has a problem with being spied on. And they were pressuring the government again and again no longer to tolerate it. Being spied on is an issue that has grown in importance within one year that now the German government has to fear to lose the next elections if they don't do anything about it. And that's exactly how it is supposed to work.
Most of European countries used to be vassals to US and if US spies were found, Europeans used to sweep such fiascos under the rug. This is changing now. My suspicion is that this is related to strong arm tactics of US government (if not outright bullying, eg. ACTA, now TISA, BNP Paribas etc.) and other fiascos (NSA, and now all this Ukraine/Russia fiasco, caused almost entirely by US neocons). My feeling is that European countries are now in the process of breaking out from strong US influence as they recognized USofA is actually not their friend. Russia might also be involved, assisting core EU countries in delicate path of reducing their political subordination to Washington. Note that France is also increasingly defying Washington orders (Mistral contract) despite of heavy bullying (BNP Paribas case), with top french politicians and central bankers talking openly about getting rid of dollar in international trade. Great Britain and Poland are the only countries trying to wreak as much havoc as possible in this process. Should this process go on for a while, it would force USofA to abandon its imperial project, reform itself and start behaving like ordinary country which would be good thing for everyone, especially Arabs/Ukrainians and ordinary Americans themselves.
This is much more than just simple spy flap story.
You just outed our spies in your network and you expect us to sign a no-spy list? Come again when we have undermined your security enough that you're as safe as the other countries we pretty much already own.
In other words, we'll only not spy on you if you hand over what we want willingly.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
As to why the 'cheap shot', it's because Obama has been expanding upon many of Bush's most-hated policies. In his campaign speeches, he promised to scale back the War on Terror, close Gitmo and rein in the surveillance apparatus. He has done none of these things, and has indeed intensified those efforts.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
| The Obama administration and that of George W. Bush both resisted such entreaties, in part because many U.S. intelligence officials believe that there are too many areas where German and U.S. security interests diverge."
This is a euphemism for saying "we believe that the German intelligence department is significantly penetrated by the Russian FSB".
Of course the German intelligence apparatus also spies on US, and France and UK, as they all do to one another.
Online sarcasm was deprecated in 1986. Please read the manual, and get off the lawn!
Because Obama is the current President, and is responsible for the current policy?
The nutcakes are the ones living in a fantasy land where we don't hold our currently elected representatives accountable. Hope and change, still waiting for the change. (I've given up hope)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
We were only following orders.
I think that Germany is sending the wrong man home. If US has any specialists worth their salt, then their station chief will be the driver, security guard. A cook perhaps, or public relations officer. If you remember from recent Snowden's revelations, officers are given made up identities. That being said, what is wrong with these Germans? The last time we have checked, Germany is an occupied nation since WW2 , it has occupiers' army and some must have forgotten who is the boss.
Which was exactly my point. They were perfectly fine when the plebes were being spied on by the NSA just not themselves.
I'm sure the German population is pissed by it. But the outrage I'm talking about is the phony scapegoating coming from the government who is conveniently only upset when it wasn't just the plebes being spied on. They were perfectly fine with that.
Without generating some type of comparison chart, I Googled multiple variations of who spies on who. Spies caught, spy agencies....etc.
And the winner of my informal who spies upon whom poll......Somalia! With no official Government they have no official spy agency.
Don't want to be spied on by your government you live under, this appears to be the place.
it seems that every modern country has been caught in some capacity.
(This was not a thorough nor proper search, just an hour of casual searching, so I know someone will come up criticizing this, finding counter examples, etc. So I say this is opinion based upon limited data and subject to change with refinement of data.)
As always, the easy target is the one who got outed. But Germany whining about spying? Now that's giggle worthy.
I don't like what the alphabet soup agencies (ANY of them, regardless of country of origin) do either. But this just seems like mock outrage to me. Just like Diane Fienstien who supports NSA spying getting bent when she found out she was targeted as well.
When you sleep with cobras, you're likely to get bitten.
Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
But, Germany wants to be part of the "special club" that has been US, GB, Canada, Australia, New Zealand for sharing SIGINT: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U... But, most of those are just part of the UK, and they speak English [more or less :-)], so Germany can never really be "one of the good ole boys" ...
Like a good neighbor, fsck is there
Or in the imperative the CIA has been made to understand: RAUS!
...seems to be doing everything in their power to push Germany to be a regional power that DOESN'T NEED OR WANT the US.
Is that the greatest idea?
-Styopa
... we in the USA could also tell the CIA to GTFO.
Re "And yet their own intelligence agencies have no issue with sharing and working with the NSA."
The West German "intelligence agencies" grew out of ww2 - some where never vetted, some had their files lost or re written, some where invited in due to needed Soviet skills- no questions asked.
Over time they selected new staff, where exposed due to their ww2 crimes or retired. The next generation was guided into a world of expensive technology to help the NSA, CIA and GCHQ understand and shape the West German teclo system.
Great work, nice pay, dreamy budgets and on the winning team. This went on for decades and the West German staff got very comfortable ensuring the copper and later optical systems worked as installed by the USA. The GCHQ and NSA enjoyed full access to all aspects of West and later German telecommunications with the full help of tame, local German staff per site.
At some point other groups within the German gov would have had enough of all their communications, trade negotiations, science, politics just flowing to the UK, USA and a few other competing countries for free every day thanks to tame German gov and private sector staff.
At some point a white list of tame US and UK helping German staff with telco site/file access would have been created to ensure site access and pass/paper work.
Perhaps other groups in the wider German gov now have a short list of German telco experts/gov staff who are more loyal to the USA/UK than German.
Once the questioning starts beyond now 1 or 2 and grows to 10's, 100's will the US and UK offer their German helpers passports, pensions and residency outside Germany?
Like the nice interpreters get after other occupations are over.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
You sound like a typical Democrat voter: anyone who disagrees with the Democrat party line is automatically a "nutcake gun-owning, violent conservative", Obama somehow isn't at fault for anything his administration does but Bush can be blamed for all current Democrat policies, and calling Obama on his pro-Bush policies is somehow "hatred of technology and science" and makes one a Holocaust denier.
Honestly, I used to think the Republicans were the nutty ones, but these days I'm starting to believe it's really the Democrats who are insane.
. ..because Germany has not allowed the Google mapping cars to traverse their entire countryside?
Yea, I know there is more to this than that, but seriously, check it out...
"Trusting every aspect of our lives to a giant computer was the smartest thing we ever did.." Homer Simpson
A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
You may or may not have noticed that the US press hasn't mentioned the name of the departing CIA Station Chief, but they haven't. Why not? Because it's A Secret! The Germans know who they're kicking out, but the US press goes along with the pretense that it's secret, and other people he might spy on in the future won't know he's a spy, and people who he's hung out with in the past might be exposed as having been spies too. In some cases it's illegal for US government officials to reveal the names of spies, but if they leak them for administration political purposes, like Scooter Libby outing Valerie Plame, they get pardoned, and if they get leaked by accident, like a White House Press Release "notice what name is missing" oops a few months back, the press politely pretends they didn't see anything.
If the Germans are really mad? Merkel can tell the German press the guy's name, and ask them to print it and put it online.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Funny, I heard this bullshit when I was stationed there ('79-'81 Air Force), and from my landlord's son, to which I responded..."If we're occupying, why am I paying rent to your father?". It's not an occupation anymore when you can be asked/forced to leave, and that was the case even back then.
Just another day in Paradise
I do not know that many Germans that are seriously pissed off about that spying. Most of them do not even understand what the hell is going on - you can try to explain what metadata is or what it can be used for and see how far you get with that. Even for tin foil brigade the Snowden revelations were a bit of a shock, I am sure. Media are having field day after day of course and opposition parties have their fun too. Still, the way our, that is US and German, citizens' rights are twisted and reinterpreted is even more damaging. What the government is doing is what it is supposed to do: they found some spies they show them/us their anger and how strong they are and expel some 'diplomats'. The actual meaning of this is most likely hidden. I wonder how did they got these guys and if there were barely pawns sacrificed to achieve some other goal.
Germans have always had more of an issue with "being spied on" than others do. For example, Germany is one of the only countries in which taking a picture with others on it is illegal unless you've got permission from all subjects!
Also, Germans have major issues with Google Streeview and they were the ones that sued Google for receiving their wifi-broadcasts.
I think they've taken this privacy-thing a bit too far, though...
0x or or snor perron?!
Yes, and? What's your point? The US and Germany are allies, it makes sense to share intelligence with allies. What doesn't make as much sense and undermines trust is spying on the administration and institutions of your allies.
I do not know that many Germans that are seriously pissed off about that spying. Most of them do not even understand what the hell is going on - you can try to explain what metadata is or what it can be used for and see how far you get with that.
The whole NSA/Snowden affair was regarded as an important topic in the 2013 election by a mere 17% of the population (pre-election ARD poll).
The Pirate Party and FDP have since not stopped making a huge fuss about it, but the truth is that most Germans don't care. They probably think it'll only hit the terrorists. Same thing with CCTV in public areas, actually. If it only ever saves one pensioner from being robbed, the majority of voters are fine with it (and demand more!).
Angel Merkel grew up in East Germany under a socialist regim where spying was a major tool in controlling the people. Back then when it had no computers and no computer networks did the government keep files on all their citizens, which tells a bit about the amount of espionage going on back then. The so called "Deutsche Democratische Republik" was not democratic at all with its single politcal party. Either you were a member of the party or you were not, and not being a member made you suspicious and a possible risk to the governement. It also did not have a free economy, but a centralised economy. It meant that if you wanted a car, of which there was only one brand available, you had to wait years to get one. The people of East Germany back then had to make the best of it and spying on one another was sadly a part of it. You could not say a bad word about the governemtn or the only political party (which basically meant the same people) without it having consequences for you. It could mean that the car you had ordered would get delayed by a few more years, or that you did not get one at all. If you were trying to build a house could this have meant that some basic building materials suddenly had become unavailable to you. And so on. So spying on oneanother and tipping off high ranking officials gave people power over each other. It is save to say that Angel Merkel knows quite well about the consequences of espionage from her childhood and her youth growing up under a socialist regim. I am not saying she is afraid of espionage, but rather is she an intelligent woman who can tell wrong from right and good from bad. She knows espionage can be good and as well as bad. A good spy is then one who uses his knowledge for good and who does not get caught, whereas a bad spy fails and is also the one who is more likely to get caught. With all that said, Angel Merkel will have done the US a favour by throwing out a bad spy. It will also help her in securing her own political position, because many Germans will still remember the ways of old East Germany. And personally will it give her a great relief to know that she is able to fight bad espionage between friendly nations.
"countries with which the United States has a non-espionage pact. Those nations include Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand."
What a joke! The U.S. doesn't have to spy on those countries. They are already *willfully* a completely open book to ANY U.S. data-gobbler. Started decades ago. Has everyone (including Angela) forgotten Echelon? Old news!
Astro
It is not violating my principle, you are choosing to ignore the definition of "expect". Hint: "Do not expect" is not a refusal.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Whew! Good thing that Germany is 100% not spying on anything or anyone in the United States ever. *
The French won't let the Americans leave Germany. Duh. They don't like the idea of becoming 'Western Greater Germany'.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
US is fearing China & Germany are conspiring to dilute http://www.cnbc.com/id/1018146...
Casteism
I do not know whether that is the reason but pirates have notoriously bad campaigns. One may say - typical for a socially impaired that the big part of them are. That is a pity as the general elections are a good point of time to pass message to the masses.