With A Little Help From My Friends

October 13, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, History, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy Tags: Berlin, Bribery, Cold War, Communism, Espionage, GDR, German, Germans, Germany, Political Parties, Socialism, SPD, Stasi, Willy Brandt Leave a comment

To keep Willy Brandt as Chancellor, the GDR was prepared to bribe members of German Parliament. Brandt’s intimate friend Egon Bahr (both SPD) negotiated with a GDR mediator in 1972 about payoffs for CDU and CSU parliamentarians. This has emerged in Stasi documents available to Der Spiegel. Brandt should thereby be kept in office. Bahr was State Secretary of the Chancellery at that time.

And this is completely unrelated, of course, but for you history buffs out there: There was a very controversial Misstrauensvotum (vote of no confidence) in German Parliament back in 1972 which Willy Brandt won – with two decisive votes mysteriously missing for the conservative opposition that had proposed it.

“Das muss absolut verschwiegen bleiben.”

At Least It Wasn’t The NSA

October 4, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helections, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Coalition Governments, Communism, DDR, Elections, Espionage, GDR, Gregor Gysi, Humor, Ruth Kampa, Satire, Socialism, Stasi, The Left Party Leave a comment

The Unification Day celebrations are now officially over. Red-Red-Green coalition talks anyone?

Well what do you know? It turns out that the chief executive secretary of the Left Party in the Bundestag was a “top agent” of the Stasi. Sachen gibt’s die gibt’s gar nicht (what will they think up next?).

Left Party boss Gregor Gysi is absolutely shocked, of course, and just cannot understand how a person like that could infiltrate a political party like his.

But at least Left Party members are able to take solace in the fact that said agent was clearly not an insidious agent of North American imperialism (excluding Canada) and a rotten capitalistic scumbag opertive working for that reactionary bourgeois NSA spy system so in the news and up in our faces these days but rather an easy-going and progressive comrade type who was not at all forced to work for a quaint totalitarian state once located in the immediate vicinity but then inexplicably disappeared and was only trying to make the world a more, you know, social place to live

Schwerer Schlag für die Linke: Die Geschäftsführerin der Fraktion im Bundestag, Ruth Kampa, war offenbar eine Top-Agentin der Stasi. Fraktionschef Gysi will davon nichts gewusst haben.

Absolutely Shocking Or Something

August 4, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, BND, Edward Snowden, Espionage, German, Germans, Germany, Meta Records, NSA, Paranoia, Surveillance Leave a comment

Who would have thought this possible? The German Bundesnachrichtendienst of all intelligence agencies, run by Germans of all people, in Germany of all places, has been systematically providing that evil National Security Agency of US-Amerika with vast amounts of German telecommunications information (meta records).

And the BND has been working closely with the NSA like this for over 50 years now, too. I know that there’s a news item here somewhere, I just haven’t figured out where it is yet.

“The BND has been working with the NSA for over 50 years, especially when it comes to the reconnoitering of situations in crisis areas in order to protect German soldiers stationed there and to protect and rescue abducted German citizens.”

“Der BND arbeitet über 50 Jahren mit der NSA zusammen, insbesondere bei der Aufklärung der Lage in Krisengebieten, zum Schutz der dort stationierten deutschen Soldatinnen und Soldaten und zum Schutz und zur Rettung entführter deutscher Staatsangehöriger.”

Germans Peeing In Pants Für Excitement

July 21, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, Home Cooking, Humor, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Edward Snowden, Espionage, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, NSA, PRISM, Satire, Spying Leave a comment

Stop watching us already!

It’s like science fiction.

NSA Now Building Spy Centers All Over Everywhere Anywhere You Can Think Of In Germany As We Speak

July 19, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, High Art, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, BND, Edward Snowden, Espionage, German, Germans, Germany, Humor, NSA, PRISM, Satire, Spying 1 Comment

I honestly had no idea that Germans were that interesting to spy on, but German journalists certainly seem to think they are these days.

Word is that a new and thoroughly evil spying facility is being built in Wiesbaden which will be a base for US intelligence operatives from the NSA itself.

Too bad those party poopers over at there Germany’s BND are already denying it. Not that that matters.

Nach einem Bericht der Frankfurter Rundschau soll es sich beim neuen Komplex in Wiesbaden um ein Abhörzentrum des US-Geheimdienstes NSA handeln.

Indignant Response Pure Hypocrisy?

July 12, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Edward Snowden, Espionage, German, Germans, Germany, Merkel, NSA, Obama, PRISM, Spying Leave a comment

Here? In Germany?

An interview with historian Josef Foschepoth published in the online edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung makes clear that US intelligence agencies have a free hand to do what they like in Germany, with the knowledge and blessing of the federal government.

The historian regards the indignant response of the German government regarding the spying activities of American and British intelligence services unmasked by Edward Snowden as pure hypocrisy. For a Western intelligence agency, such as the National Security Agency (NSA), there are in principle no limits in Germany.

“The NSA can do everything in Germany. Not only because of the legal situation, but above all because of the intensive collaboration between the services, which was always desired and always politically acceptable.”

United Stasi of America

July 9, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habitudes, Helplessness, Hideology, High Art, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Espionage, German, Germans, Germany, NSA, Protests, Stasi, Surveillance 2 Comments

Get it? A protest at the US embassy in Berlin and stuff.

The National Security Agency can gather about one billion times more information than the sinister Stasi police that were used to hunt down the targeted people of Nazi Germany.

And just in case you were wondering, Germans only do “strictly legal” spying. But you probably weren’t wondering.

Darunter war das Konterfei des umstrittenen Internet-Unternehmers und Multimillionärs Kim Schmitz alias „Kim Dotcom“ zu erkennen. Der gebürtige Deutsche lebt in Neuseeland und ist Gründer der – mittlerweile geschlossenen – Internetplattform „Megaupload“, über die die Nutzer auch illegal an Musik und Filme gelangen konnten. Seit 2012 warten die USA auf die Auslieferung des Unternehmers, weil ein Haftbefehl gegen Schmitz vorliegt.

Visit Germany!

July 2, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Higher Education, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Asylum, Berlin, Edward Snowden, Espionage, Extradition, German, Germans, Germany, Law, NSA, PRISM, Russia, Spying Leave a comment

If you dare. Then enjoy your short stay here before your extradition back home (home?) to the USA.

The Federal Republic of Germany can offer asylum to someone who is being politically persecuted, not to someone who is being sought for criminal offences.

And I if you want to try the refugee angle, Germans define refugees as being those who have a justified fear of being persecuted because of their race, religion, nationality, affiliation to a specific social group or political persuasion. So good luck with that, too.

Of course Germany could let you stay anyway. But that would be it then. With their pious preaching about the Rechtsstaat (rule of law) and how the NSA spy scandal demonstrates how the US does not respect it, I mean.

Ecuador und Island in Österreich, Bolivien, Brasilien, China, Kuba, Finnland, Frankreich, Deutschland, Indien, Italien, Irland, Niederlande, Nicaragua, Norwegen, Polen, Russland, Spanien, der Schweiz und Venezuela.

Die Linke hatte bereits in der vergangenen Woche die Bundesregierung dazu aufgefordert, Snowden Asyl zu gewähren. Am Montag hatten dies auch die Grünen in Spiel gebracht. Snowden solle in der EU oder sogar in Deutschland “sichere Unterkunft haben, denn er hat Europa einen Dienst erwiesen”, erklärte Fraktionschef Jürgen Trittin.

Outrage: Registered

June 30, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Habitudes, Hard Facts, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Home Cooking, Hurt Feelings, Hypochondria, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: CIA, Der Spiegel, Edward Snowden, Espionage, EU, Europe, NSA, Sauerland-Gruppe, Surveillance, Terror, Terrorism Leave a comment

Now this is what I call a news item. Who would have thought that? The NSA, a US-Amerikan cryptologic intelligence agency expressly responsible “for the collection and analysis of foreign communications and foreign signals intelligence” has been found to be collecting and analyzing foreign signals intelligence. In ze Europe, of all places.

Europeans would never do such a thing, you see. Nor would the governments of the Netherlands, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Britain among others ever never ever admit to having secret agreements with Washington to hand over their citizens’ private data to said agency.

Outrage: registered. Now, the issue of how far spy agencies in other countries actually knew, participated in or made use of the NSA’s surveillance program is another question entirely.

Snowden Hiding In Germany

June 25, 2013 By Hermann Observer in Habeas Corpus, Hate, Helplessness, Hi-tech, Hideology, Hurt Feelings, Hypocrisy, Hysteria Tags: Berlin, Edward Snowden, Espionage, German, Germans, Germany, Google Street View, Humor, NSA, Paranoia, Pixelation, PRISM, Satire, Traitors, Treachery Leave a comment

Or maybe he isn’t. But he couldn’t have picked a better place to go underground if he is. Germany simply doesn’t exist like other places do — not online, I mean.

One of my Berlin neighbors forced Google to pixelate the façade of my apartment building on its popular Street View service a few years ago in the name of Teutonic privacy. Whether I liked it or not, my home was pixel bombed into oblivion.

In fact, so many people have opted to blot out their houses that web guru Jeff Jarvis said at the time Germany had “digitally desecrated” its online landscape.

“Activists like Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Bradley Manning need international support and our solidarity.”

Snowden: Enthüllungen von Anfang an geplant

Observing Hermann

“Was interessiert mich mein Geschwätz von gestern?”

Tag Archives: Espionage