Berlin's Digital Exiles: Where Tech Activists Go To Escape the NSA 231
An anonymous reader writes with this story about how Berlin has become a haven for Laura Poitras and other journalists who want to limit the amount of NSA disruption in their lives. "It's the not knowing that's the hardest thing, Laura Poitras tells me. 'Not knowing whether I'm in a private place or not.' Not knowing if someone's watching or not. Though she's under surveillance, she knows that. It makes working as a journalist 'hard but not impossible'. It's on a personal level that it's harder to process. 'I try not to let it get inside my head, but I still am not sure that my home is private. And if I really want to make sure I'm having a private conversation or something, I'll go outside.'
.....We're having this conversation in Berlin, her adopted city, where she'd moved to make a film about surveillance before she'd ever even made contact with Snowden. Because, in 2006, after making two films about the US war on terror, she found herself on a 'watch list'. Every time she entered the US – 'and I travel a lot' – she would be questioned. 'It got to the point where my plane would land and they would do what's called a hard stand, where they dispatch agents to the plane and make everyone show their passport and then I would be escorted to a room where they would question me and oftentimes take all my electronics, my notes, my credit cards, my computer, my camera, all that stuff.' She needed somewhere else to go, somewhere she hoped would be a safe haven. And that somewhere was Berlin."
.....We're having this conversation in Berlin, her adopted city, where she'd moved to make a film about surveillance before she'd ever even made contact with Snowden. Because, in 2006, after making two films about the US war on terror, she found herself on a 'watch list'. Every time she entered the US – 'and I travel a lot' – she would be questioned. 'It got to the point where my plane would land and they would do what's called a hard stand, where they dispatch agents to the plane and make everyone show their passport and then I would be escorted to a room where they would question me and oftentimes take all my electronics, my notes, my credit cards, my computer, my camera, all that stuff.' She needed somewhere else to go, somewhere she hoped would be a safe haven. And that somewhere was Berlin."
Land of the Free (Score:5, Insightful)
Germany?
How times have changed...
Re:Land of the Free (Score:5, Informative)
Berlin has a history of this. I believe, during the Cold War, it was the one place under West Germany's governance whose residence were not subject to the German military draft. So it became a haven for left-leaning I dividuals.
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... left-leaning I dividuals.
Hmm... looks like the "n" key in my iPad is broken.
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Re:Land of the Free (Score:4, Funny)
Well, there's your problem right there.
The iPad doesn't have keys!
Re:Land of the Free (Score:5, Interesting)
Apropos of your sig:
This Laura Poitras is a hell of a reporter. She's got a documentary out right now called "Citizen Four" and it's about her initial contacts with Edward Snowden.
If any of you want to see a movie that's a real-life thriller and will have an impact on you beyond anything else that's in the theaters, go see this movie. It's going to win the Oscar for Best Documentary.
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Torrent please?
Re:Land of the Free (Score:4, Insightful)
Torrent please?
So basically, she does all that ballsy reporting, and you now want her to not get paid for it? Awesome.
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I'll tell you what, Mr Liberty. You go see Citizen Four and if you believe it wasn't money well spent, I'll refund every nickel of your ticket (and throw in a large popcorn).
Do we have a deal?
Re:Land of the Free (Score:5, Insightful)
Does that include plane tickets?
Contrary to what you think, not all of us have cineplex nearby or the inclination to be surrounded by strangers in a dark place...
The studios make the mistake you are making, it's not only about money; it's about convenience. Make it available and I will gladly pay for it.
I own a couple of hundred movie DVDs and about 500 hundred music CDs, plus perhaps a thousand books; but if I can not buy something which is available thru piracy, then a pirate I become...
Content-producers need to realize it's a big, big world and stop thinking of their little corner of it.
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if it's not on torrent, it's not worth bothering. if it's worth watching, it will be, eventually.
have fun with your pocpcorn.
Re:Land of the Free (Score:4, Interesting)
More usefully, will there be/is there a place to buy it DRM-free legitimately?
The irony would be too painful if it were only available locked up.
Re:Land of the Free (Score:5, Insightful)
Germany experienced first hand how democracy and government can go bad, so now has some of the strongest privacy and protection laws in the world. They are determined never to let it happen again.
Plus, Germany is not part of Five Eyes.
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I can't deny the holocaust in germany. they still have something to learn about liberty.
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That would be a more dramatic claim if human trafficking wasn't alive and well within the US.
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terrible example. america has has a race issue for the better part of 3 centuries. longer than it's existed. the legacy of slavery impacts race relations to this day.
Our president is black, and people were wondering if he was a real american... It was a huge thing for a reason.
i'm fairly sure germany has effectively outlawed the national socialist party. that's solved one problem, but they have a bit to learn about free speech.
Re:Land of the Free (Score:5, Insightful)
Germany?
How times have changed...
Er, not so much. Berlin in the 1920s was an island of intellectual freedom and experimentation in all kinds of artistic, social and political philosophy before the corruption and incompetence of the Weimar regime brought everything crashing down.
In the 1970s, it was haven for an entire generation of the European avant-garde. David Bowie's song Heroes is pretty much a story about two lost young lovers living in a besieged Berlin:
I can remember
standing by the wall
while guns shot above our heads
and we kissed as though nothing could fall.
It's no accident that the song is available in German as well as English.
You can go back even farther if you like. Similar to London's position as the maritime gateway to the Continent, Berlin's position at the crossroads between East and West, North and South in Europe has ensured that it's a popular mixing spot for political, social and artistic cultures.
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Er, not so much. Berlin in the 1920s was an island of intellectual freedom and experimentation in all kinds of artistic, social and political philosophy before the corruption and incompetence of the Weimar regime brought everything crashing down.
It happened in Germany, it can happen in the USA.
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It IS already happening in the USA.
Holocaust Survivor Leaving US - Sees What's Coming (Score:5, Interesting)
Granted from 2005: http://www.rense.com/general65... [rense.com] ...
"I had been stationed in Germany for two years while in the military, so I lit up, and commented about how beautiful the country was, and inquired if he was going back because he missed it.
"No," he answered me. "I'm going back because I've seen this before." He then commenced to explain that when he was a kid, he watched with his family in fear as Hitler's government committed atrocity after atrocity, and no one was willing to say anything. He said the news refused to question the government, and the ones who did were not in the newspaper business much longer. He said good neighbors, people he had known all his life, turned against his family and other Jews, grabbing on to the hate and superiority "as if they were starved for it" (his words).
He said he was too old to see it happen right in front of his eyes again, and too old to do anything about it, so he was taking his family back to Europe on Thursday where they would be safe from George W. Bush and his neocons. He seemed resolute, but troubled, nonetheless, as if being too young on one end and too old on the other to fight what he saw happening was wearing on him.
I have related this event to you in the hopes it will serve as a cautionary anecdote about the state of our Union, and to illustrate the path we Americans are being led down by a group of fanatics bent on global economic and military dominion. When a man who survived the fruits of fascism decides its time to leave THIS country because he's seeing the same patterns that led to the Holocaust and other Nazi horrors beginning to form here, it is time for us to recognize the underlying evil inherent in the actions of those who claim they work for all Americans, and for all mankind. And it is incumbent upon all Americans, Red and Blue, Republican and Democrat, to stop them."
What has really changed from the Bush years of great significance in that regard?
See also:
"They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45"
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/... [uchicago.edu]
""What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.
"This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter."
Jews who moved to Israel seem to me overall to have interpreted "never again" in terms of who has the most guns. But there is another perspective on that, which is to think that "never again" should be about militaristic bureaucracy getting out of control. A culture like the USA (or Israel for that matter) can be full of guns and people who know how to use them, but still infested with militarist bureaucracy infesting every aspect of life (including via perpetual full-surveillance "schooling"). Like bureaucracy, humans have had a long association with fire, and fire is useful to warm our homes and cook our meals, but it is a terrible thing when it rages out of control.
That said, how should we behave when we are essentially t
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Indeed. How times have changed.
Re:Land of the Free (Score:5, Informative)
You can't even mention a Nazi or you'll be imprisoned.
That's complete nonsense.
It's like they think all of that bad history will simply disappear if they outlaw any discussions or symbols attached to it.
While a number of symbols are outlawed indeed, discussions are not. What caused you to be this misinformed?
I would hate to think what the German government would do to me if I went there and they saw my swastika tattoo. Despite being a part of my cultural heritage and part of my belief system, they'd probably label it a Nazi symbol and throw me in prison.
As long as you don't show it in public, you're fine.
Please stop spreading bullshit like this; it would generally be advisable to not comment on subjects you don't know jack shit about.
Signed,
A German
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discussions are not
That depends on the subject.
"Whoever publicly or in a meeting approves of, denies or belittles an act committed under the rule of National Socialism of the type indicated in Section 6 subsection (1) of the Code of Crimes against International Law, in a manner capable of disturbing the public peace shall be punished with imprisonment for not more than five years or a fine."
"Whoever publicly or in a meeting disturbs the public peace in a manner that assaults the human dignity of the victims by approving of, d
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no you wouldn't. they'd have to determine that you called for imminent violence and that a reasonable person would have anticipated it.
If you say that MLP dolls are on sale, and it causes a stampede where kids are trampled to death, you're fine. If you tell a group of your fanatic MLP followers to go go fuck up a store and to let none of those kids in their way stop them from getting their hands on swag. you'd probably be looking at a lot of jail time.
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each law on the books is one more restriction on your liberty.
it's never used? then purge it.
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Any law banning that would be unconstitutional.
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If you were to read my other comments, you'd see that I haven't been repeating that to myself at all. It looks more like I despise the way America currently is, which I do.
Yes, that would probably happen, but that doesn't change the fact that it's unconstitutional.
Who would've thought (Score:5, Insightful)
that the USA's NSA would be the successor of East Germany's Stasi, 25 years after the Berlin wall fell.
Re:Who would've thought (Score:5, Insightful)
I cant even have dinner conversation with someone over the age of 30 in the USA without rampant jingoism and political correctness. If I really spoke my mind I would be killed. By the state, by the minions of the state, by ignorance, and by complacence.
I have a cousin a nephew. Who is a 'veteran' (yet he doesn't even have his ID, his DD214, or any legit story about his service). I question everything they say. They randomly support this jingoistic attitude.
I have random friends at school. I can't tell them about the horrors I've seen. I don't dare. I don't want to be ostracized.
I served honorably.
Many soldiers. Many people who are patriots and supported the US feel this way. Are this way now. When, where and how do we take a stand for what is right?
Two options: (Score:3, Insightful)
Through force or feet :) Given that the soap box and ballot box aren't working, you should consider the foot boxes, or the soapbox turned racer and roll right on out of the country!
Seriously though American isn't going to change until the people have to deal with the full consequences of their own actions, and those of us who've been telling them why those actions are a bad idea really have no reason to still be here when the 'sky falls down' as it were.
Find a place or make a place. If you can't trust those
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Over the age of 30? or under? I am not a veteran but I have found that the younger crowd seems far more locked into the PC mindset than older people.
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The younger crowd farts in an off key and they think they're some freedom fighter. In reality present young generations buy the "State"'s eff you dee lock stock and barrel. Exactly that's why us older ones cannot die just yet; it is us -- we are the blossom of our respective nations; we've got jobs to carry out.
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Yeah, cause that stuff is SO important. The old farts have got you fighting over bullshit, while they murder the rest of the world, all in your name. You think having gay marriage is more important than NSA spying, cause you're idiots.
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As someone well over thirty - I'm gonna call bullshit on this one. Either you're overgeneralizing or you're the actual problem.
Sounds like you're the problem here. What kind of sick fuck wants to tell random people about "the horrors they've seen"
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I'm a veteran.
From about 30 years ago. I couldn't tell you where my DD214 is to save my life.
And there's not a whole lot other than "we flew to Holy Loch and went on patrol. Then we flew back when the patrol was over." that I could tell you, what with all the security clearances surrounding playing with the Navy's nuclear reactors....
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cant even have dinner conversation with someone over the age of 30 in the USA without rampant jingoism and political correctness.
You need to move out of the South and stop hanging around conservatives.
Opposite experince... (Score:3)
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i apologize for nothing.
Dirty hippies, and dirty rednecks.
US is great, it's not perfect, but you know... if men were angels.
Re:Who would've thought (Score:5, Insightful)
Different time periods, different tools. The Stasi needed a huge state machinery in order to carry out their monitoring because so much of the activity had to be done by an individual worker - listening to calls, reading letters. The NSA has the advantage of automation: Computers can read every email automatically and pick out only the interesting highlights or patterns.
How much effort would it have taken the Stasi to find out 'who has sent the traitor a letter over the last year?' Today, it's one SQL query.
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The most egregious behaviour of the Stasi involved turning members of the public against each other, with threats of imprisonment or harassment should one decline their offer. Their information-gathering activities, while disgusting, were a distant second concern to most people. Being approached by the Stasi affected everyone regardless of activity, and would change lives overnight. My soon-to-be-father-in-law's father was approached by the Stasi and asked to work for them. He accepted, went home, grabb
I remember (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember when the US was the country people would come to when they wanted to get away from oppressive regimes.
Re:I remember (Score:5, Insightful)
You must be getting up there in years. At 35, I am not sure I am old enough to remember it.
I am old enough to remember "ra ra tear down this wall" and other propaganda bullshit from the 80s, but I was too young to understand this was just grandstanding. I can remember the "if you don't support bombing countries you are unamerican" from both the Republicans and Democrats in the 90s. And I remember the day the USA became a police state. It was after the turn of the century on a day in September.
Re:I remember (Score:5, Informative)
You could argue that the last time the US was "free" was prior to about 1910.
Before the 1911 passage of the 16th Ammendment the government's power to collect income taxes was extremely limited. A good chunk of the loss of financial freedom could be attributed to the income tax and all the various laws that grew up around enforcing it, such as limits on cash transactions, financial reporting, etc.
1909 saw the passage of the "Smoking Opium Exclusion Act" which barred the importation of opium, the first time a substance was banned for consumption. Followed up with the Harrsion Act in 1914 which got tougher on opioids and restricted them to medical uses. This leads to the next step, alcohol prohibition in 1920. Although it was overturned, it was the first big attempt at wholesale regulation of previously free behavior. The entire thing grew into the war on drugs and all the loss of freedom we now associate with it, including contributing to controls on cash transactions, a total erosion of search and seizure and mass incarceration.
Lots of other firsts from that era -- the Red Scare, the rise of Federal law enforcement, etc.
You can say we were "more free" in the 1970s or 60s or whatever, but it seems like we really started to lose it around 1910 when the Federal Government began to assert itself as a central law enforcement and control authority.
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...it seems like we really started to lose it around 1910 when the Federal Government began to assert itself as a central law enforcement and control authority.
Some will tell you even today, it began with the 'War of Northern Aggression'..
I would tell you it began with the Whiskey Rebellion.
And I do know why it's 'hip' to blame Wilson right now...
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The Civil War argument I've heard before but you really don't see significant changes in personal liberty as a result. The Whiskey Rebellion seems more dubious as I think you can make a strong argument for the tax and the response by Washington (and this case, quite literally George Washington) plus there doesn't seem to be any single enduring legacy of loss of personal liberty stemming from it.
Sadly, liberty and democracy have been on the losing end throughout history. We could say it died with the failu
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>Sadly, liberty and democracy have been on the losing end throughout history..
And yet, somehow, when seen over the course of centuries they seem to be gradually winning. Do you suppose that's modern propaganda, or is the apparent contradiction the result of a sawtoothed advance, where liberty and democracy are bought with often bloody rebellion and then lost to creeping corruption until it gets bad enough that something triggers the next uprising?
Re:I remember (Score:5, Insightful)
It's interesting to contrast the German/European concept of freedom with the one out outline in your post about the US.
In Europe people see the government as their instrument to protect themselves from marauding corporations, poor health and extreme poverty. In the US those things are welcomed in exchange for the slim chance of getting rich, or at least no interference from government. In one view the government is a tool that society uses collectively, in the other it is a necessary evil that is inflicted on you. The reality is probably somewhere in the middle.
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The reality is probably somewhere in the middle.
Newsweek addressed that notion in an article 30-odd years ago on a subject I don't remember, except that someone had written that. The article speculated on what an editorial might have said in 1935:
"Germans see Hitler as the charismatic, dedicated leader who can guide them out of poverty and despair into a new age of security and pride in their heritage. Americans see him as possibly destabilizing. The truth, as always, is somewhere in between."
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"Germans see Hitler as the charismatic, dedicated leader who can guide them out of poverty and despair into a new age of security and pride in their heritage.
It's funny how that seems a lot like America. Leaders are chosen mostly based on charisma, e.g. the ability to do well in TV debates and project a good image in advertising. Americans are very proud of their heritage and their country, and I needn't even start on the until trillions spent on "security". Being strong on security is a requirement for any president.
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You could argue that the last time the US was "free" was prior to about 1910.
Yes, before 1910, if you were a white male (and not Irish or some other undesirable immigrant), then you indeed had a lot of freedom.
If you were black or female, forget it. Women coudn't even vote then.
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Um, yes, what's your point? I never said the US was worse than any place else, I just pointed out that it wasn't all that free 1910 as some people believe, it was only free for a certain privileged portion of society.
In addition to that, it wasn't even all that free for white males, depending on where you went. All that stuff in the Bill of Rights (freedom of speech, religion, etc.) didn't even apply until the 1900s sometime. Before that, it was considered as applying only to the Federal government: the
No you don't, you just remember incorrectly (Score:5, Insightful)
No you don't. You just don't realize that the people who fled here in the 17th century to avoid the oppressive regime in England created a whole new oppressive regime for the indigenous people. And it was so rampant into the 18th century that they wrote an entire constitution (that didn't apply to said indigenous people, or the slaves that were imported) to try and protect it. Then in the 19th century, half the country tried to repress the other half - destroying their entire way of life. By the 20 the century we were into your bedroom and your liquor cabinet trying to impose morality on the immoral. And we can't forget McCarthysim - oooh, that was a really good one, followed by the Hoover FBI.
Oppression is as much a part of humanity as humanity itself.
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No you don't. You just don't realize that the people who fled here in the 17th century to avoid the oppressive regime in England created a whole new oppressive regime for the indigenous people. And it was so rampant into the 18th century that they wrote an entire constitution (that didn't apply to said indigenous people, or the slaves that were imported) to try and protect it. Then in the 19th century, half the country tried to repress the other half - destroying their entire way of life.
If you're referring to the Civil War, the way of life that was destroyed was based on, err, umm, the oppression of slaves, so destroying that way of life was a good thing.
And we can't forget McCarthysim - oooh, that was a really good one, followed by the Hoover FBI.
Hoover did that sort of thing well before he was head of the FBI; see, for example, the Palmer Raids [jrank.org].
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The Civil War was not about the oppression of slaves (contrary to popular belief). It was about the crushing of dissent.
Exactly what the US is still about the present day.
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And the particular thing being dissented against was the looming eradication of slavery. Which goes to show that you can be the small band of rebels taking on overwhelming odds and still be the bad guys.
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He must have been a remarkable individual, then, to go against his own financial interests to do right by his nation. Contrast this with the Confederacy who's legacy - aside from a pile of corpses - was doing to the concept of "state's rights" what Nazis did to the swastika, all so their wealthy could avoid paying their workers.
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to be fair,
"Lincoln faked his own assassination, travelled forward through time and became Adolf Hitler."
i would be very interested in this movie.
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The Civil War was not about the oppression of slaves (contrary to popular belief). It was about the crushing of dissent.
I never said what the Civil War was about. I was merely responding to what appeared to be a complaint about the South's way of life having been destroyed; if that's what they were referring to, much of that way of life should have been destroyed, so the destruction of that way of life wasn't a bug, it was a feature.
Sadly, although the 13th Amendment to the US constitution finally added one more freedom that the Constitution defended, the "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been
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"(that didn't apply to said indigenous people, or the slaves that were imported) to try and protect it. Then in the 19th century, half the country tried to repress the other half - destroying their entire way of life"
You're condemning the US both for allowing slavery and for abolishing slavery? Doesn't seem like you're coming to this subject from an unbiased place.
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Oppression is as much a part of humanity as humanity itself.
You see ... that is the thing.. no. Some countries, like US, England, Spain, France, Russia have a much richer history of oppressing both citizens and other countries than others. It seems to be a trait that concentrates into some tight areas of general assholery.
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Since US does not exist even those 500 years, let's look at what happened during the 250 that it exists: Continent wide Genocide of Native Americans, Slavery, Apartheid, Kukkluxklan, One major Civil War, Close to 100 covert CIA operations to change regime of other countries, Only country in history that used Nuclear Weapons on civilians. Want something more recent? Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, What about NSA having surveillance system that KGB openly envies? FBI collecting dossier on politicians for blackmai
Re:No you don't, you just remember incorrectly (Score:4, Interesting)
Indeed. If you're talking about the Mayflower Pilgrims, they had found religious freedom in the Netherlands and it scared the shit out of them.
Re:No you don't, you just remember incorrectly (Score:5, Insightful)
McCarthy was right in the same way that the people terrified of terrorists are right; communists existed, and terrorists do exist, but both threats were overblown. And none of this justifies infringing upon people's liberties.
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I remember when the US was the country people would come to when they wanted to get away from oppressive regimes.
Unfortunately, like me, you remember a time when people came to the US to escape more oppressive regimes. Sadly the reality is that was back when our government lied to us and we (mostly) believed what we were told. Or ignored the facts that were staring us in the face. I was born after WW2, but the Japanese internment camps were one very glaring example.
Re:I remember (Score:4, Insightful)
The US is still a country that isn't oppressive...not measured against a global average. It's just headed the wrong direction, and taking "not currently oppressive" steps that will make the slide into an oppressive state difficult to stop.
E.g., a database identifying everyone by photo and voiceprint isn't, in and of itself, oppressive. It's only when you mix it with authoritarian legislation that it becomes so. Alternatively it could be a database for ensuring that sick or injured people could be treated with due care to avoid medications that they were allergic to.
The problem is that the government is untrustworthy. You can't trust them to have good intentions, so when they do something that has multiple possible uses, you need to expect that they will abuse it. They may also use it beneficially, but here a kind of inequality rears its head: Any one act can do a lot more damage than good. So if you think something will be used for both good and bad, you need to expect that the bad will to a lot more damage than the good heals.
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Don't measure against averages, measure against absolutes, or against the best if that's easier.
Have a look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... [wikipedia.org] and sort each column in left-to-right order, only three countries appear at the top. Fortuntately I live in one of them. I expect that we won't be on top in 2015 thought :(
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E.g., a database identifying everyone by photo and voiceprint isn't, in and of itself, oppressive. It's only when you mix it with authoritarian legislation that it becomes so.
Bullshit. It's oppressive because it's a massive violation of people's privacy rights.
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you want those rights? convince enough people that they're important, and when enough people make a stink the legislature will legislate a gaurantee for privacy. until then, it's up for grabs.
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Actually, they still do.
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Okay, but they apparently missed the signs that Mexico was entering failed-state territory.
The police allegedly just shot up 43 protesters and handed them over to a so-called drug gang, one of the paramilitary proto-governments that are waiting in the wings to attempt to take over if the Mexican government fails completely.
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:) so you're chopping your parents decision in half and are only presenting the part that wasn't terrible? and you're using it as an example of "wisdom"?
way to undermine yourself.
"he decided to leave the US by blowing himself up, shows them, can't take his liberties" - wise decisions
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In fairness, publicly accusing your superiors in the secret service of grossly inappropriate behavior probably counts as receiving warning of their displeasure.
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ex-patriot.
(whimper...)
4th Amendment (Score:2, Funny)
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... is this guy suggesting you shoot the TSA agent for taking your water bottle? leaving aside the fact that you knew you'd have to forfeit your bottle before you bought your ticket... does he imagine that this will somehow, let you fly?
Escape NSA in Berlin (Score:2, Insightful)
You can't escape an intelligence agency especially in Berlin!
During the cold war Berlin(DE) like Viena(AT) was a central station for spies.
But she feels safer, that's a relief.
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Vienna has two N's, and Germany's capital is actually a very decent place to hide from the NSA in the wake of the concern over spying on Merkel.
So you're wrong but you feel right, that's a false relief.
And the Soviet Union disappeared a while ago, so burni2's "during the cold war" argument is a bit silly at this point in any case.
pretty foolish (Score:4, Informative)
Germany has "strict" privacy laws, but they largely apply to organizations that don't pose a big threat to privacy in the first place. Police, courts, financial institutions, businesses, tax authorities, secret service, "state police", health insurers, and employers can have a field day with your private data in Germany. The government can easily use telecoms and online services to access private data. This is a country where you must declare your religious affiliation to the government and that spies on democratically elected members of parliament as a matter of course. To the degree that it provides a refuge for Americans on no-fly-lists and under special scrutiny, that's just because it is a separate country; I think you can be pretty certain that as an American activist in Germany, you are closely scrutinized.
We clearly have serious problems with a government that has become far too intrusive and invasive in the US. But Europe has no good ideas for how to fix these problems, least of all countries like Germany.
But, hey, if you disagree, name some specific German laws that we could adopt in the US that you think would help, and explain how they would make a difference.
Re:pretty foolish (Score:5, Insightful)
Germany has "strict" privacy laws, but they largely apply to organizations that don't pose a big threat to privacy in the first place. Police, courts, financial institutions, businesses, tax authorities, secret service, "state police", health insurers, and employers can have a field day with your private data in Germany.
The US has strict privacy laws too (more specifically the Bill of Rights), and those laws apply to everyone. The problem in the US isn't the absence of such laws, it's the absence of oversight and enforcement of those laws.
Re: (Score:2)
True; that's why I said we have a problem "with a government that has become too intrusive": we clearly do have a problem with enforcement. But what's your point? Enforcement in Germany is certainly no better than in the US; that is, the BND and BfV and similar organizations have even less supervision than the NSA and CIA do in the US. Most of the "enforcement" of data protection and privacy in Germany consists showy accusations against America and American businesses, largely driven by political and busin
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It's quite difficult to have less supervisions than the NSA and the CIA. Those are people who can lie to congress under oath, be found out, and still not pay ANY penalty.
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It is quite easy to have less supervision. For example, state security agencies may not even have to report much to parliament; the executive and legislative branch may be colluding to maintain the status quo; or when they are found out, the press doesn't write about it and nobody cares. That's the situation in Germany.
Yes, what's going on
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uh they're not reporting to the parliament and when they something to the parliament they lie.. it's even worse than no supervision, it's deceit.
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Oh, goodie, let's apply your reasoning to another kind of offense, say, murder. What you are saying is that a society in which murder is illegal but is occasionally not prosecuted due to corrupt prosecutors is worse than a society in which murder is legal, commonly committed, and nobody cares. Sorry, but I think you got it backwards.
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Why would you enforce a law that has no explicit penalty, seems like a waste of resources ;)
Re:pretty foolish (Score:4, Interesting)
The US has strict privacy laws too (more specifically the Bill of Rights),
Uh what? No it doesn't. While the Supremes have traditionally held that you have a right to privacy which is implied by the rights which are enumerated, there is no strict right to privacy — especially in the bill of rights, which explicitly does not define what level of privacy you're entitled to. It leaves that up to laws to be defined by the federal government later (their power to do so being elsewhere granted) when it for example prohibits "unreasonable" search and seizure. Since it's not actually defined, the government is free to define it elsewhere. What needs to be on a warrant is defined there explicitly. Warrants are still a thing. There is a lesson to be learned there, and the lesson is that when they left certain things open-ended, they completely punted on them.
I wonder... (Score:2)
Creepers (Score:3)
Colonel Morris Davis, the whistleblower, tells a story of how he and one of his children were home one night when they were scheduled to be out of town (apparently, they missed a flight). They were sitting upstairs when they heard people breaking in downstairs. Col Davis came down and found the door unlocked (he had locked it) and his personal files gone through.
They came into his house when he and his kid were at home. We have monsters working for our government.
It might have been Thomas Drake that told the story. One of those guys, though. Both heroes, in my book, for exposing the illegal surveillance of our government on American citizens who have not committed any crimes.
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My guess is that you don't have children.
Fear of the USA (Score:4, Interesting)
Over the years, I have said quite a few things critical of America and its surveillance state, and of its gun culture, on this site.
Because of this, I think there is a pretty good chance that if I ever went to the US that I would discover that Im on some watchlist, and that travelling there would be quite scary and difficult.
Thankfully there is no reason for me to ever travel there.
Now I can see what they mean by "chilling effect". This is some pretty scary stuff.
The moral of the story?
Dont say anything critical of the US on any digital device. It will come back to haunt you.
Re: (Score:2)
One network to track all calls. One network to know all West German phone numbers. Staff tame to the US and UK where selected and stayed in place.
The tame staff then promoted the next generations with the same US and UK understandings. A Gehlen Organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] for the West German telco systems.
Great for tracking expos
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I'm one of them.
Essentially the way it works is, when the NSA creates a "profile" on you they weigh various factors to determine how much of a "perceived threat" you are. Sure, you disagree with policy and protocol, etc; but unless you are actually a threat, they just monitor.
However, I'm sure they keep a neat little treasure trove of things by which in the future they can put pressure on anyo
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Maybe so, but he did give it a shot. Which anonymous coward does Obama have anything to fear of?
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The tour guides at Hitler's mountaintop chalet, the Eagle's Nest, are certainly upfront about it.
(Actually only foreigners call it the Eagle's Nest; that name was hung on it by the international media in 1938. Germans call it the Kehlsteinhaus.)
Re: (Score:3)
Not everyone has a lawyer on retainer just idling his time away, and plenty of money. Even then, I believe that precedent is against her. IIRC it has been ruled that the constitutional guarantees don't apply to people crossing the border (or, for that matter, bein within 200 miles of either a border, an international airport, or a sea port where foreign ships might dock...please note this covers most of the population of the country).
Re: (Score:2)
I am sure everyone has seen the recent news that using EEG computers can decipher internal speech. Well, that can be done remotely too using radio waves and its a very old technology. Modern versions use transmitters on satellites and exploit properties of standing waves to penetrate shielding and deep underground. A modern system can track and decode neural signals even 50 meters underground in a moving train, or at 30000 feet in an aircraft. There is no such thing as privacy and if the NSA/CIA wish to listen, there is nothing you or anyone else can do about it.
Stop the cloak-and-dagger, hiding on street corners, that is privacy 1960's style. Welcome to a brave new world.
Dude, you need to adjust your tinfoil hat, you are speaking all sorts of crazy pseudo-scientific gibberish.
Sure, the NSA is listening to our communications, but the shit you are spouting is absolute fiction. I wish it wasnt, because the technology you describe would be stunning and would have amazing far-reaching effects across a multitude of scientific and Engineering disciplines. It would be a massive boon to communications and remote sensing all around the world, and in space.
Maybe you should have a go a