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Probe Into NSA Activity Reveals Germany Spying On Germans
cold fjord writes The Local (DE) reports, "The Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany's foreign intelligence service, spied on some citizens living abroad, a former lawyer for the spies told MPs on Thursday. Dr Stefan Burbaum ... said that some Germans were targeted as "office holders," a legal loophole the spies used to circumvent the law that protects Germans citizens from being spied on by its own intelligence agency. ... the German spies argue that a citizen working for a foreign company abroad is only protected in his private life, not in his professional communications ... "The office holder is the legal person," Burbaum said. ... "This construct of an office holder is just as absurd in practice as it appears in the law," Konstantin von Notz of the Green party said. Further, foreigners' communications conducted abroad are not protected, even if they are in contact with German people or work for a German company. MPs ... criticized the BND's ability to operate in a "lawless zone" when it came to spying on foreigners. ... the BND regularly retains traffic which it had not received specific permission to investigate which it collects during such trawls. In this way, access acquired under the "G10 law" becomes a "foot in the door" to otherwise closed-off sources of data, Burbaum said." The parliamentary investigation was initiated by reports that Chancellor Merkel's phone was being tapped by NSA, but later it was found that at least five countries were tapping Merkel's phone.
USA supposed to be a democratic country. Ditto for Germany and Britain, right?
In USA, NSA spies on the American citizens while GCHQ spies on the Brits, and seems like the Germans are doing the same
Is this one of the "feature" of the so-called "Western *democracy*" ??
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Or, in German, Unter Gleben Glowben Globen. Which translated to American means, Under Your Very Noses the DDR LIVES!
They (BND) created several new theories:
a) Space Theory: German law does not apply in space, so their satellites (or those from agencies of "friends") are not bound by the constitution.
b) Function Owner Theory: When someone is acting within his/her capacity as a function owner, he is no longer a person protected by the constitution.
c) The Meta Data Theory: Meta data does not contain privacy protected information.
Thanks to Snowden this mess came to light. This now needs to be cleaned up. All three approaches will be shot down, with or without the governments approval.ï
Most parliamentarians agree, that the intelligence services practically beg for a shorter leash. Power struggles and party politics will delay it, but they will get it.
Germany spying on Germans is not news. As usual, Shitdot is reporting the news a century late.
Gaming companies have dealt with issues like this for many years whereby players will attempt to engage in "rules lawyering" to get around the letter of the game's rules in order to exploit loopholes to essentially cheat to win. Game companies dealt with that by including a catch-all to simply say that if what you're doing is clearly and obviously designed to bypass the rules or exploit loopholes to gain an unfair or unintended advantage, you get punished.
Legislatures could learn a lesson from this. For each law written, write in a catch-all such that clear and obvious attempts to circumvent the law by exploiting loopholes in the wording brings about similar or the same penalties as violating the law itself. For laws designed to control groups, such as intelligence services, ensure that everyone involved bears the punishment of violating the law. In other words, get the guy who ordered it, the guy(s) who disseminated the orders, and everyone who carried out the orders. Then also include strong whistleblower protections and rewards for reporting the worst abuses. When everyone from the top of the organization to the bottom has their ass on the line and when enough carrots are dangled in front of the guys doing the grunt work, stuff like that will unravel in a hurry. I love my job for numerous reasons. Would I risk 20 years in prison for it if the higher-ups decided to start doing illegal stuff? Not a chance.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
A shame NSA is so determined to use the technology it has at its disposal to breach our privacy both personal and professional, wondering what they want to do with all that droves and droves of information they been collecting over the years, all in the name of National Security.
how the hell does FIVE COUNTRIES tap the phone of a head of government of a 'western' country? holy fuck. something is seriously messed up in this world.
During the 1940s-1980s, all the West ran large intelligence services during the Cold War. The jobs were nice and comfortable, the budget was assured, and it was a good career. Working in its own little bubble, no one told the intelligence services what to do.
Then the Berlin Wall came down. And by about 1995, we had a different world, with no obvious place for the spies. They were frantic for a new job, and started pushing to do organised crime, drugs, etc.
Then came 9/11, and a whole new set of jobs for them in the Middle East. Which is why we now keep the ME in constant turmoil.
Really, the West should have closed down the 'extra-judicial' intelligence services that they ran during WW2 by about 1980 when the Cold War ended. There may still be a need for criminal and anti-terrorist intelligence - but it should be done by the police under a legislative framework. The whole point about secret intelligence and secret agent work is that it is extra-judicial BECAUSE YOUR COUNTRY IS AT RISK. That means that if you are likely to be invaded, it's worth throwing away legal restraints. But NOT otherwise. A bomb in an aircraft or a train? That's a criminal act - call the police. And give them the appropriate resources, under law.
But we didn't. We kept the extra-judicial staff on. And they are, unsurprisingly, looking for work to justify their jobs....
Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit
Für das deutsche Vaterland!
Danach lasst uns alle streben
Brüderlich mit Herz und Hand!
Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit
Sind des Glückes Unterpfand;
Blüh' im Glanze dieses Glückes,
Blühe, deutsches Vaterland!
Deutschland Uber Alles
Everybody wants to tap Angela!
Perhaps BND could do some collaboration with the officials doing internal security, such as protecting tappable assets of the Chancellor, to at least to give an impression of doing their job in protecting the security of the nation.
"Besides the U.S. National Security Agency, Merkel's phone was monitored by the British, Russian, Chinese and North Korean surveillance agencies, weekly news magazine Focus reported, citing an unnamed German security official."
You can see they're trying to put out the "everyones doing it" line, but if the Russian, Chinese, and North Koreans had her phone hacked that would be odd, because the network kit is American, and we have confirmation NSA was doing the spying, yet America is not mentioned in the list.
More likely they put out disinformation to cover for their own acts. Note that this revelation means the Germans were likely spying on Merkels phone and other politicians phones, using the "Office holders" loophole.
Unfortunately, our government (I'm german) is full of irresponsible, power-greedy fools. Local television has highlighted some of these problems repeatedly (like ministers who, not in 1970 but in the 200s need to decide about Internet regulations but don't even know what a browser is). Unfortunately, one of the things that changed compared to, say, 30-40 years ago is that they've replaced the state-paid experts in the ministries with lobbyists ^H^H^H "external advisors", who are not only experts in their fields (good), but also paid for by private corporations. That's right, the people advising our government get their salary not from the government, but from corporations.
I don't know if stupidity is a sufficient explanation, but our ministers including Merkel actually had encrypted mobiled phones offered to them by a special branch of the government responsible for securing the state IT infrastructure. They turned them down because it was more convenient to use market smartphones.
Personally, I think that act alone should be suffient to bring them all up for trial on aiding and abetting treason.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Yeah, think about it for a second. You, me, and whole of slashdot would have guessed the phone is tapped. You really think the germans didn't know this? Sometimes it's a great idea to know or assume things like that, and then just let them be. If Merkel knows her phone is being listed she can use it for her advantage.
What I find suprising is the resigned acceptance of mass surveilliance. Some folks have taken to playing with semantics, but that's a mockery of good faith.
What will it take to get more folks out on the street. It's increasingly looking like nearly nothing, too many folks in self annointed 'flagship democracies' seem to be too comfortable and ensconed to bother, unless it affects their own individual material lives or sense of well being. As long as democratic values, freedom and the parapenelia or the lack of it does not affect material day to day life, most people it seems will be tempted to make excuses, diminish and dismiss their importance.
Today if I asked you if genocide is acceptable or any circumstances where it may be acceptable will get absolute responses. Yesterday if I asked you mass survelliance is acceptable it would be the exact same response. Curiously today there are now nuances, semantics, goal posts being moved, justifications, pointing to China and Russia as if they were the benchmarks loudly proclaiming democratic values and the moral high ground introduced into an absolute position.
Societies are very good at making excuses for themselves and rushing to demonize others, and the capacity for reflection and self awareness is altogether dimished or non existant, and since the western media controls a lot of the narrative its interesting to watch it nearly live as the narrative shifts and loudly proclaimed values are rendered meaningless.
Twist!
Other governments spying on their citizens? No way! It's all the boogeymans fault aka NSA