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German Federal Prosecutor's office gets involved in the NSA data scandal

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21–30 of 41 posts

Re: German Federal Prosecutor's office gets involved in the NSA data scandal

#21
post #15

Is there any hope that something tangible is going to come out of that? Given its history it seems more than unlikely that Germany has any abilities of severe actions. Oh well, I am sure they are going to send a detailed list of issues that need to be addressed through "diplomatic channels"...

No. And actually my tinfoil theory is, that the federal prosecution is handling this, so that they can take anything PRISM related from local prosecutions, to bundle and bury it as one large package.

Re: German Federal Prosecutor's office gets involved in the NSA data scandal

#22
post #19
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hahaha. Ask Dick Cheney, Henry Kissinger, and a whole host of other American bad actors who hesitate to leave the safe confines of the United States nowadays.

Kissinger was in Germany to watch his favourite soccer club play (Fürth). I'd say that counts as "leave the safe confines of the United States". He also celebrated his birthday in Fürth in 2012.

I wasn't actually talking about Germany. He does have to avoid countries that have declared him (accurately, in my opinion) a war criminal.

Re: German Federal Prosecutor's office gets involved in the NSA data scandal

#23
post #13

An English article on these issues. Today from Spiegel Online: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/eu-officials-furi...

Some have called for a suspension of talks on the trans-Atlantic free trade agreement.

And now we start talking about costs to the United States.

Re: German Federal Prosecutor's office gets involved in the NSA data scandal

#24
It's so funny to see all this railing up against NSA and PRISM, while tomorrow, the first of July 2013, the "Bestandsdatenauskunft" will be implemented as law in Germany. A commentator from Die Zeit newspaper tersely summed up the intentionally abstruse wording of the new rules. The law means, “that police and intelligence services will in the future be allowed to obtain extremely personal information about mobile phone users, and do so with the press of a button and without having to face any major legal hurdles”.

Crudely translated it would mean something similar to "Inventory Data Information Act". Parts of the new law are the following:

> With respect to the obligations of the access providers, ISPs with more than 100,000 customers are now required to maintain a “secure electronic interface” in order to minimise the time needed for certain agencies to retrieve information.

The innocuous sounding term, “inventory data”, should not detract from the fact that the issue involves direct access to people’s private lives. “Not only names, addresses and bank account details will be sent to the police. But also the PINs of the mobile phones, and passwords blocking e-mail inboxes and accessing services like Dropbox and dynamic IP addresses”, warned Die Zeit .

Proper english article (I don't know about this source in general, but this one is accurate): https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/04/11/germ-a11.html

Google translated german articles:

Die Zeit: http://translate.google.de/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=_...

Der Spiegel: http://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=htt...

Netzpolitik.org: http://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=htt...

The debate about this is astonishing mute on its own, but compared to the NSA, PRISM and TEMPORA public outcry, the debate about the Bestandsdatenauskunft is basically non-existent at the moment.

Re: German Federal Prosecutor's office gets involved in the NSA data scandal

#25
post #23
post #13

An English article on these issues. Today from Spiegel Online: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/eu-officials-furi...

Some have called for a suspension of talks on the trans-Atlantic free trade agreement. And now we start talking about costs to the United States.

Costs to the US?? What do you mean?? But people have been blathering for weeks on HackerNews that the US spying on anyone who's a foreigner is good and right and expected! Surely they can't have neglected to consider that there's only so long you can fuck with people's liberties, whether within your own borders or without, before the lie is revealed and the system build around it crumbles.

No, I won't buy it. I stand with HackerNews here. Spy on foreigners FTW!

Re: German Federal Prosecutor's office gets involved in the NSA data scandal

#26
post #23
post #13

An English article on these issues. Today from Spiegel Online: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/eu-officials-furi...

Some have called for a suspension of talks on the trans-Atlantic free trade agreement. And now we start talking about costs to the United States.

And Germany. Free trade is win-win, definitely when two countries are similarity developed.

Not going forward with this would be stupid and benefit no one. It's not even a threat.

Re: German Federal Prosecutor's office gets involved in the NSA data scandal

#27
post #7

I'm surprised, and also quite disappointed, that only Germany (that I know of) takes the spying on its citizens so seriously. I wish more governments would inquire the legality of the NSA programs, and would dare to take action in case it is ruled illegal.

The government may publicly take a stance against the NSA programs but in reality it not only wishes to, but is actually implementing simmilar programs in Germany (see "Bestandsdatenauskunft"). I doubt that any real action will be taken.

Re: German Federal Prosecutor's office gets involved in the NSA data scandal

#28

It's so funny to see all this railing up against NSA and PRISM, while tomorrow, the first of July 2013, the "Bestandsdatenauskunft" will be implemented as law in Germany. A commentator from Die Zeit newspaper tersely summed up the intentionally abstruse wording of the new rules. The law means, “that police and intelligence services will in the future be allowed to obtain extremely personal information about mobile ph…

I'm surprised Germans are not up in arms about it given the Stasi history. They should know better.

Similar-minded agencies in other nations most likely will try to catch up with NSA/PRISM. It is a serious issue and I hope people will not let the NSA scandal be a cover for those initiatives, but an aid to expose them.

Re: German Federal Prosecutor's office gets involved in the NSA data scandal

#29
post #9

Surveillance of Germany: Federal Prosecutor's office gets involved in the NSA data scandal By Jörg Schindler Central NSA offices in Fort Meade: spy programs are a case for German jurisprudence According to SPIEGEL's sources, surveillance by the the American spy service NSA has now also come to the attention of the Federal Prosecutor's office. Information is being gathered in Karlsruhe about the American and British s…

"the surveillance of Germany by the US spy service NSA is more extensive than heretofore assumed."

So they knew about it already but made a poor assumption. It would be interesting to know how poor that assumption was.

Re: German Federal Prosecutor's office gets involved in the NSA data scandal

#30
post #9

Surveillance of Germany: Federal Prosecutor's office gets involved in the NSA data scandal By Jörg Schindler Central NSA offices in Fort Meade: spy programs are a case for German jurisprudence According to SPIEGEL's sources, surveillance by the the American spy service NSA has now also come to the attention of the Federal Prosecutor's office. Information is being gathered in Karlsruhe about the American and British s…

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