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Germans accuse U.S. of Stasi tactics before Obama visit

reuters.com

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Re: Germans accuse U.S. of Stasi tactics before Obama visit

#2
Not surprising. With the Gestapo, and then the Stasi, the Germans have an extensive cultural memory of the effects of comprehensive government surveillance of their lives. They are still surprisingly tolerant of the long term military occupation of their country by the US. It would have been interesting if Snowden had holed up in Germany instead of HK. I wonder if the inevitable US military extradition would have tested the tolerance of the Germans.

Re: Germans accuse U.S. of Stasi tactics before Obama visit

#5
post #2

Not surprising. With the Gestapo, and then the Stasi, the Germans have an extensive cultural memory of the effects of comprehensive government surveillance of their lives. They are still surprisingly tolerant of the long term military occupation of their country by the US. It would have been interesting if Snowden had holed up in Germany instead of HK. I wonder if the inevitable US military extradition would have tes…

According to Wikipedia, as of 2010 the US military has 52,440 people in Germany, and as of 2013 the German military had 188,921 active personnel and as of 2010 144,000 in their reserves.

That falls a bit short of "occupation" in my book. There has in fact been at least one technothriller based on the US military fighting its way out of Germany, based of course on the Anabasis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabasis_(Xenophon) Xenophon and 10,000 Greeks fighting their way out of the Persian Empire).

Re: Germans accuse U.S. of Stasi tactics before Obama visit

#7
post #5
post #2

Not surprising. With the Gestapo, and then the Stasi, the Germans have an extensive cultural memory of the effects of comprehensive government surveillance of their lives. They are still surprisingly tolerant of the long term military occupation of their country by the US. It would have been interesting if Snowden had holed up in Germany instead of HK. I wonder if the inevitable US military extradition would have tes…

According to Wikipedia, as of 2010 the US military has 52,440 people in Germany, and as of 2013 the German military had 188,921 active personnel and as of 2010 144,000 in their reserves. That falls a bit short of "occupation" in my book. There has in fact been at least one technothriller based on the US military fighting its way out of Germany, based of course on the Anabasis ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabasis_(…

How would you call it there were almost half a million fully armed German troops stationed in the US?

A great success for US board of tourism?

Re: Germans accuse U.S. of Stasi tactics before Obama visit

#8
post #4

this is a great movie about surveilance in the east germany. I don't know how accurate though. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/

I have a nerdish interest in the Stasi for reasons I can't quite explain. I've not seen the movie, but I'd recommend Stasiland:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasiland

as an account of various people who lived under the Stasi. Also, The File:

http://www.amazon.com/The-File-A-Personal-History/dp/0679777...

The (again, factual) story of someone uncovering their own file and researching its history.

Re: Germans accuse U.S. of Stasi tactics before Obama visit

#9
The headline sounds like an official government statement but then this guy is no one I ever heard of and the only quote I could find does not even mention the word Stasi.

  American surveillance (literally: compulsive checking) goes definitely to far if
  it interferes that much with the privacy of internet users. Something like this is
  unthinkable here. I thought we had overcome this era with the downfall of the DDR.
It is just ridiculous what they made out of this (unless I just failed to find the complete statement).

Re: Germans accuse U.S. of Stasi tactics before Obama visit

#10
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Wikipedia, as of 2010 the US military has 52,440 people in Germany, and as of 2013 the German military had 188,921 active personnel and as of 2010 144,000 in their reserves. That falls a bit short of "occupation" in my book. There has in fact been at least one technothriller based on the US military fighting its way out of Germany, based of course on the Anabasis ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabasis_(…

How would you call it there were almost half a million fully armed German troops stationed in the US? A great success for US board of tourism?

Oktoberfest in the South?

/j

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