Opps or something.
This doesn’t really surprise anybody though, does it?
Seine Enthüllungen hätten zu einer friedlicheren Weltordnung beigetragen.
Tag Archives: NSA
US Government Officials Want To Kill Me
A whining Edward Snowden has told German television in an exclusive interview.
US citizen just wants him to finally shut up and to PLEASE go away already for crying out loud, says a thoroughly disgusted me.
“These people, and they are government officials, have said they would love to put a bullet in my head or poison me when I come out of the supermarket, and then watch as I die in the shower.”
No Spy Deal Now No No Spy Deal
As Washington said it would announce reforms to its National Security Agency (NSA) later in the week, German media were already focused on a likely disappointing outcome for Berlin in talks on a “no spy” arrangement.
Oh, I dunno. Other than Washington not promising to stop listening in on politicians’ calls or say when they are listening in on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone (or whoever else) or not allowing the Germans access to an alleged listening post on top of US embassy in Berlin, I’d say those “no spy” arrangement talks are moving along pretty well.
Doch der Fehler liegt woanders: in einer naiven Erwartungshaltung. Dass die Drahtzieher des 11. September aus Hamburg kamen, ist den Amerikanern immer noch präsent. Dass es zahlreiche Deutsche gibt, die sich nach Syrien aufgemacht haben, um dort an der Seite von Islamisten zu kämpfen, ebenfalls.
Secret NSA Database Discovered In German Phone Booth
Just when it appeared as if the lastest wave of hysteria about personal privacy violations by the NSA was subsiding in Germany, a local man in the small southern German town of Oberscheißheim has stumbled accross what appears to be a vast treasure trove of illegally acquired private data carelessly left hanging in the town’s telephone booth.
Although in German and ostinsibly published by the “Deutsche Post,” personal privacy experts are nevertheless convinced that this could only be the work of the NSA. The secred database, in book form, is said to contain a a detailed, unencrypted listing of all of the town’s residents, to include name, address and telephone number, and would have been freely accessible to anyone entering the booth had not the quick-thinking resident who discovered the ghastly privacy violation not ripped it from the small metal chain it had been attached to.
“I felt it was my duty to inform the local authorities immediately,” the man later said when being questioned, prefering to remain anonymous, of course, with a paper bag over his head. “And I shudder to think about all the other secret databases possibly out there just like it, in communities just like our own, just waiting to be discovered and accessed by perfect strangers.”
“And in closing, I must say that I also get the creeps when I think about what the NSA is going to do to that poor careless agent of theirs who left the thing hanging there in the first place. What a dumb ass.”
The NSA has a secret unit that produces special equipment ranging from spyware for computers and cell phones to listening posts and USB sticks that work as bugging devices. Here are some excerpts from the intelligence agency’s own catalog.
“On The Run From The Henchmen Of His Homeland”
Concerned Germans everywhere (note the red scarf) weren’t quite concerned enough to actually offer poor and misunderstood professional leaker/Russian tourist Edward Snowden political asylum, but now they all hope in unison that Brazil will (tons of Germans have found refuge there in the past, you know).
Otherwise those awful henchmen/bogeymen from that horrible homeland of his might just get him and, well, we don’t even want to THINK about what could possibly happen to him then!
Ex-NSA-Mitarbeiter Edward Snowden will auf seiner Flucht vor den Häschern seines Heimatlandes offenbar nach Brasilien weiterreisen.
Neurotic Impulse
And maladaptive reaction. Berlin, a counterculture paradise? I guess. A privacy haven? Keep on dreaming.
But it’s a lot more than that. Berlin has always been a place to hail heros who aren’t heros. That’s why this Snowden asylum nonsense fits like a glove here.
An international cadre of privacy advocates is settling in Germany’s once-divided capital, saying they feel safer here than they do in the United States or Britain, where authorities have vowed to prosecute leakers of official secrets…
One wants to be glad that Berlin (and Germany) is a sanctuary for people who have been subjected to inappropriate, excessive snooping by U.S. and U.K. authorities. Still, it’s always worth it, I think, to be a little skeptical of individuals, or groups, or cities and countries whose attitudes carry a whiff of neurotic impulse and maladaptive reaction. Berlin positively reeks of it…
It is an ironic twist for a sometimes-bleak city that was once better known as a backdrop to John le Carré novels.
Hysteria Is A Good Thing
NSA hysteria, I mean. If you are a German IT service provider looking to cash in on it, that is.
“Hosted in Germany” is big marketing medicine in Germany these days, or at least that’s what many German IT companies are hoping. The question is just how long the hysteria can be kept going at a fevered pitch in order to get the bigger bucks, I mean euros, these German data centers will now be demanding.
Then, of course, there are still those plans for the coming of the dawn of the birth of the age of the German Internetz, sort of. What will they think of next?
Das IT-Unternehmen Bechtle sieht seine Chance in sicheren Plattformen für Daten und in Software „made in Germany.“
We May Be Outraged (as usual) But We Ain’t Stupid
Grant political asylum to a Straftäter (criminal offender)? Not even Germany can pull that one off. Angie & Co. just said nein to this indistinct possibility.
It was nice for leading figures in the German Outrage Industry to pretend like they could for fifteen minutes or so, I guess, but sooner or later even the best/worst of them have to come back down to Planet Earth again.
Die Voraussetzungen für eine Aufnahme des Whistleblowers lägen nicht vor, sagte Regierungssprecher Steffen Seibert.
PS: But it ain’t over till it’s over, Amerika. Vice President of German Parliament (one of six – nice work if you can get it) Claudia Roth HERSELF is still planning to press criminal charges or something. Someone is suspected of having actually listened once to what she said on her little green cellphone – eavesdropping-wise, I mean. And I pity the fool who gets in her way (thanks A.K.).
Some Things Never Change
And this is supposed to be news? “Berlin is the European capital for secret agents.”
Or how about this one: “Most of the foreign agents active in Berlin enjoy diplomatic status and can therefore not be collared by German law enforcement authorities.”
Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like I’m living in Wunderland sometimes. In “the old days” everybody knew the deal and nobody ever even raised an eyebrow (“früher war alles besser“). Now everybody’s got hurt feelings all the time. I do wish someone would finally call their parents and have this all explained to them.
“Die meisten ausländischen Agenten, die in Berlin tätig sind, verfügen über einen Diplomatenstatus und sind damit für die deutschen Strafverfolgungsbehörden nicht fassbar.”
German Left Rep Clearly Aroused During Snowden Visit
Green politician Hans-Christian Ströebele had the time of his long left life yesterday when he got the breathtaking opportunity to meet with prized US whistleblower (consipirator, betrayer, informer, defector, spy, etc.) Edward Snowden HIMSELF, up close and personal in Moscow ITSELF, to discuss the possibility of Snowden’s two-timing help in a German parliamentary investigation into sneaky US spy activities.
Luckly, a German TV news team just happened to be in the vicinity at the time and was able to document this historic meeting for history ITSELF. The team had their hands full, however, just trying to keep a clearly erregt (aroused) Ströebele from stammering all over himself, so impressed was he with the snitchy Snowden. Snowden being Edward Snowden, after all.
After intensive three-hour questioning, Ströebele and Co. where finally able to determine that the American turncoat poster boy “clearly knows a lot” and that the only way Ströebele could possibly get more excited than he already was would be if Snowden could somehow be convinced to come to Germany to squeal some more there. I mean here. Please do oh pretty please do please!
“Er hat klar zu erkennen gegeben, dass er viel weiß.”
Observing Hermann 