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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?
Not really, but the outrage would be less phony if they weren't such hypocrites.
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.
It's never about the moral high-ground. It's always about diplomatic leverage.
This excludes actions by populist elected bodies or particularly fickle monarchs. But in general if one nation is doing something to another nation, it's maneuvering by state and intelligence departments.
Actually, Germany has a problem with spying on their own citizens, as this was declared illegal by the European Court of Justice.
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.
No they don't. The supreme court actually has something to say in Germany, and its constitution is pretty strong (also in practice) w.r.t. privacy and citizens rights. I'm not german myself (but living near germany). My impression, also from German newspapers etc., is that most germans including politicians are truely mad and are seriously considering to cool down relations with the USA. The USA is risking to loose one of the few remaining friends it has in the world.
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.
The endgame is for individual politicials and political parties to distance themselves from their cooperation with US intelligence sharing programs in the eyes of their voters.
What they can do is to force the closing of one or two US Army intalations in Germany. Although no real impact if they pick carefully, it would send an extremely serious message on a political level.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Not only is this hypocrisy, but they are using a single person as a scapegoat for what is obviously an institutional problem. Sending one guy away when the BND and Bundespost work directly with the NSA will not fix a damn thing.
I truly hope that German citizens keep up the pressure to force a real change and don't accept this token arrangement as a "fix" to the institutional problems. Fortunately Germans are more aware of politics and games than Americans.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Wouldn't the existance of spies be the reason for a "no-spy list?" I mean if you're not spying on each other anyways, then why waste time and money negotiating that? Seems to be a required precondition.
This proves the status quo is spying, therefore the premise of a no-spy list is valid.
I don't think it is that complicated (as simple as it sounds).
This is pure show. They kicked the station head out, not the entire CIA. The station will continue doing what it is doing because it gets orders from higher up the chain. They know this but it makes good political theater and appears like something was done for the populace to be appeased.
The US does it too. The IRS commissioner (Steven Miller) who supposedly resigned because of the so called scandals was quitting anyways. It was just show.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics...
No, a surprise would be throwing US agents in jail.
They can't do that to "legal" agents. "Legal" agents are US Embassy employees recognized by the host government as diplomats with immunity. "Legal" agents usually have some silly, trivial sounding titles, like, "The Under-Secretary for Cultural Exchange". But their real job is gathering intelligence, and the host country knows that and tolerates it. These folks are quite easy to spot: Just look for someone who is obviously way to intelligent and clever for his job. Like someone with a Ph.D. in international affairs from Harvard and Yale who is doing clerical work at the embassy.
Lots of intelligence work is actually quite boring, and not the James Bond stuff that you expect. The agents collect and assess political sentiment and economic developments and trends in that country. The CIA gives the President of the US a short briefing every morning for breakfast, and informs him if something is amiss somewhere in the world that needs his immediate attention. During this meeting the President also instructs them which areas he thinks need their "special attention".
This is definitely regular international diplomacy stuff.
When countries who aren't quite on the most friendliest of terms get in a huff, like Russia and the US . . . they will take turns tossing out some of each others' small fry "legals" described above.
The occasional persona non grata happens.
The CIA Station Chief is not an occasional persona. That's usually taboo among allies. Russia knows who the CIA Station Chief is in Moscow. But they do not toss him out. The US knows who the SVR Resident is in Washington, as well . . . and leave him alone.
Tossing out the CIA Station Chief is a serious diplomatic escalation, which is why it is getting so much press coverage.
Oh, here's an interesting Pro-Tip: If a foreign diplomat wants to hand you a piece of paper with an explanation of why their country just did something very nasty . . . you don't touch it. You instruct him to read it out loud. If you put your hands on it, his country will report that you "accepted" the explanation. If you don't, you will only hear in the news that the diplomat "read out load" or "recited" the explanation. This is the next thing that you will hear about this, as the professional diplomats from Germany and the US try to paper over the cracks left by the spooks.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
...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.
It's not in Germanys interest to weaken the American economy... That would hurt them just as bad...
I'm pretty sure no European country even wants to indicate that they want to mess with the US economy... Not because they are scared of a US response. But because they don't want to weaken the world economy, upon which many European countries depend.
If Germany made thebUS dollar fall even more. That would hurt the European economy and weak EURO economies would need further bail outs...
This is an appropriate and proportional response... It's not enough, I agree, but it's pretty good start! A European country deporting US officials is a big thing.