Snowden Can Be Asked To Testify In Person In Germany NSA Probe (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Whistleblower Edward Snowden can be asked to give evidence in person by a German committee probing the NSA's spying activities, the country's Federal Court of Justice has ruled. Germany's government has been told that it should make suitable arrangements for that to happen. It has been refusing to invite Snowden to give evidence personally since it would need to guarantee that he would not be handed over to the U.S. -- a promise the German authorities say would risk damaging the political relations between the two countries. Instead, it has called for him to give evidence via a video link, or for German officials to interview him in Moscow, both of which Snowden turned down. Following a formal complaint by the greens and left-wing politicians, Germany's Federal Court of Justice has ruled that the German government must provide the necessary guarantees that would allow Snowden to give evidence in person, or explain why it will not do so. Snowden's lawyer, Wolfgang Kaleck, told the Suddeutsche Zeitung that the German government might refuse to provide guarantees, and officially admit that it regards cooperating with the U.S. on intelligence matters in the future as more important than getting to the bottom of past surveillance. In that case, an appeal could be made to Germany's constitutional court, according to an article in Der Spiegel, which would decide whether the German government was allowed to make that trade-off. The committee of inquiry is examining to what extent German citizens and politicians were spied on by the NSA and its so-called Five Eyes partners -- notably GCHQ -- and whether German politicians and intelligence agencies knew about this activity.

Comments

Re:Just what we need, a traitor sharing more secre

[Guybrush_T]

You can doubt Russian/Hong kong intents, but the German story seem to be pretty legitimate and you can't blame them if they want to know how much the NSA spied on them.

Now, if you call Snowden a traitor because it will reveal the truth about the NSA spying activities on their partners for business intelligence, that's your call.

Trump vs. Clinton Matters Here I Think

[rectalfeeding]

I think it matters a lot in this situation that Trump beat Clinton instead of vice-versa as most of the world expected would happen. Especially with the way Trump won, even if he's seemed to dial it back since the election. Personally I'm not at all certain the differential is quite that significant, but I suspect the rest of the world including Germany is more concerned with the scale and direction of state surveillance under Trump than they would have been with the same apparatus under Clinton.

Myself I think Clinton deserved more flak over the fingerprints and credit card numbers taken from UN diplomats in NY revealed by Wikileaks/Manning (that was cablegate right?). But somehow even after that, I get the impression that the world is more willing to give Hillary the benefit of the doubt there than they are to Trump. For very good reasons of course.

That's really bold

[zedaroca]

They want him to testify against his own country, in the interest of the German people (and not in the interest of Americans/humanity in general as he previously did), all without giving him political asylum first.
For a country that doesn't have the decency of giving political asylum for someone that is being persecuted for whistle blowing on activities that hurt the whole world to even ask for help would be really bold. But doing so while threatening to give him to a country that is known for human rights abuses, torture and that have a legal system where he can not present a defense for his actions. Impressive.

It's a trap!

[gestalt_n_pepper]

There's no compelling reason for his physical presence other than his capture. None.