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Memories of Stasi color Germans’ view of U.S. surveillance programs

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Re: Memories of Stasi color Germans’ view of U.S. surveillance programs

#81

Post by noonespecial »

oceanstone wrote: post #8

Assuming this level of unconstitutional surveillance continues, what can we do? Here are some of my ideas: Send encrypted emails, to communicate long distances. Use the internet way less. Use cell phones only to arrange real life meetups. Hang out & talk to people in real life. Never have a meaningful discussion "over the air".

I'm going to have to go with "no". Or perhaps "yes and". We should not be forced to curtail our use of one of mankind's greatest triumphs because a few cold-war troglodytes think that they are somehow entitled to read all of our mail and arrest us for word-crimes.

These people don't deserve the power given to them in trust. We should remove it from them. Nothing less than that will do.

Re: Memories of Stasi color Germans’ view of U.S. surveillance programs

#83

Post by sneak »

VladRussian2 wrote: post #57
Historiopode wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically enough, the lead actor (Ulrich Mühe[1]) had really been under Stasi surveillance; a surveillance to which his then wife allegedly collaborated. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulrich_M%C3%BChe

this is the most destructive aspect of surveilance state - it is not that the state, ie. its proper officers and facilities, are doing - after all one can reasonably expect them to do all sort of nefarious things one can imagine and thus one is considered reasonably warned, it is about anybody (even friends and family) can happen to be a secret informant and collaborator. In case of USA the secretly imposed gag order…

I signed up for Google Plus reluctantly, mostly just to use hangouts as Skype doesn't work on the ARM Chromebook.

I don't use Facebook and I host my own email, mostly because I'd like to keep my social graph private.

However, Google knows everyone I'd have added on Plus already - and offers to add them for me. How? They've all uploaded their address books, and they all use gmail.

80-90%+ of my social graph is already known to them, just because my friends have already given them the data. My lack of participation in Google Plus is insufficient.

Re: Memories of Stasi color Germans’ view of U.S. surveillance programs

#84

Post by ollysb »

louthy wrote: post #80
sentenza wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You bring up an interesting point. I very often read that the UK joined for the single market but then afterwards the EU started taking away national sovereignty. I don't quite understand how this view of things is possible. From the very start, when the Coal and Steel Community was created in 1952, loss of national sovereignty was, to a certain degree, built into the system. The primary goal of European cooperation…

The problem is we're an ex-Imperialist island nation. That breeds a certain psyche of superiority and xenophobia that I think is very hard for us to shake off en-masse. I think there's a sense with the British that we brought 'civilisation' to a huge portion of the world, why do we need anybody else telling us what to do? Even as children we're constantly fed war movies about the plucky Brits fighting against the evi…

> we have a moat

I think this is a large part of why GB has a different relationship with Europe. In other European countries you can just jump in a car and drive almost anywhere else in Europe. For many people they can be in a couple of different countries in under an hour. Compare this to Gavin to book a flight or a ferry crossing, with the time and cost involved, and it's not too surprising that we're not as neighbourly as the other members of the EU.

Re: Memories of Stasi color Germans’ view of U.S. surveillance programs

#86

Post by Asparagirl »

sentenza wrote: post #38

What I find suspiciously absent from the relevations so far is the DNA angle. If the STASI had had todays technology, they would have tapped all phones, stored all data, and collected DNA samples wherever they can. Assuming that all spy agencies think more or less alike on the issue of data gathering, why haven't we heard of the NSA collecting DNA samples?

The US government's acquisition of people's biometric information, including DNA, has already been outed by WikiLeaks in their release of the Embassy cables a few years ago. Did you see this story? http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/...

The text of the original cable: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/...

Re: Memories of Stasi color Germans’ view of U.S. surveillance programs

#87

Post by danbruc »

feral wrote: post #20

The EU, which Germany is a major part of, passed the Data Retention Directive [0] in 2006. That directive required every state in the EU to pass laws that all their citizens telecommunications metadata would be stored for at least 6 months, and often more, up to 2 years. As I understand it, this means all 'metadata' is required to be stored, including the source and destination for every phonecall and text message, i…

Without judging this I see one positive thing - it is publicly known what information is collected, there is a debate about it and you can file a lawsuit against it. And as seen in Germany they courts are really taking the issue serious and don't just try to silence you. To me this seems orders of magnitude better than not even knowing what is going. Of course, as seen in the case of the UK, there is no guarantee that nothing else is going on but even after the events of last weeks I still have quite a bit of trust in Europe.

After reading a bit into it I think the situation is actually quite good. The EU passed the directive requiring all EU countries to adopt national laws for data retention but now there are lawsuits all over the place. The directive has been widely adopted by the member states - in some cases after being sued by the EU for not adopting the directive (but this court is not responsible for ensuring that the directive does not violate other laws) - but at least in Germany, Romania and the Czech Republic the laws have been canceled after they were ruled unconstitutional. There are pending lawsuits against national laws in other countries, more lawsuits against member states, for example Germany, by the EU for not adopting the directive and lawsuits against the directive. After being ruled unconstitutional and violating human rights in several countries I think it is only a matter of time until the whole thing gets buried. It will have cost an insane amount of time, money and dedication but the system still seems - more or less - to work.

Re: Memories of Stasi color Germans’ view of U.S. surveillance programs

#88

Post by fchollet »

ollysb wrote: post #84
louthy wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is we're an ex-Imperialist island nation. That breeds a certain psyche of superiority and xenophobia that I think is very hard for us to shake off en-masse. I think there's a sense with the British that we brought 'civilisation' to a huge portion of the world, why do we need anybody else telling us what to do? Even as children we're constantly fed war movies about the plucky Brits fighting against the evi…

> we have a moat I think this is a large part of why GB has a different relationship with Europe. In other European countries you can just jump in a car and drive almost anywhere else in Europe. For many people they can be in a couple of different countries in under an hour. Compare this to Gavin to book a flight or a ferry crossing, with the time and cost involved, and it's not too surprising that we're not as neigh…

There is a bullet train, the Eurostar, that puts London at 2h15 from Paris. It's quite expensive though, compared to a car ride. Anyway, I do not think that the Channel accounts for the peculiar relationship of the UK with Europe. Instead, it might have something to do with the relationship between the UK and the US, I believe. That is what is tinting the UK-Europe relation.

Re: Memories of Stasi color Germans’ view of U.S. surveillance programs

#89

Post by raphman »

walshemj wrote: post #17
hiddenfeatures wrote: post #6

In my experience over the last few weeks, younger Germans (my age, 30 years & younger) are blissfully ignorant ("I don't have anything to hide" - sounds familiar ?) to the impact of the government spying on its citizen. 24 years are a long time & that part of history is not as well-ingrained in the collective memory as the Holocaust. :-(

Its always struck me as odd that Germans seem to be so hot on privacy but seem fine with having mandatory ID cards and with the police being able to demand you show it.

One might argue that ID cards actually preserve privacy. In order to give some company or person proof of my identity, I just have to show them my ID card. This transfers less personal information to them than a driver's license, birth certificate, etc. State-issued ID cards are usually much harder to falsify than those, too. Therfore, rarely something else beside them is needed for identification. Therefore, identity theft is more or less a non-issue in Germany.

Re: Memories of Stasi color Germans’ view of U.S. surveillance programs

#90

Post by D9u »

dwaltrip wrote: post #28
lispm wrote: post #23

The US is in need for a full operating system upgrade. Like going from Mac OS 9 to OS X. Not a .1 upgrade. Obama delivered a Microsoft-style upgrade. You were promised 'hope' and 'change'. What you got is a worse version of Microsoft Windows with lots of spyware and a built-in 'security' system.

We need to re-write the damn kernel

Not really. The US Constitution is fine. What we need is compliance on the part of the government.
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