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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.
He with nothing to hide does not exist.
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."
He with nothing to hide should not have to fear for his privacy.
I'm not okay with the local Stasi installing bugs in my house. By the same token, I am not okay with them listening in on private conversations held over the phone or on the Internet. Even if it means a couple of terrorists go uncaught. Because what surveillance buys you is at best temporary security: a few high profile busts, and wrongdoers will find ways to evade that surveillance, which isn't all that hard.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
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