No, that’s not from a Philip K. Dick novel.
It’s bitter reality. In German minds, anyway.
Tesla cars have been banned by police in the German capital Berlin over spying fears sparked by the vehicles’ high-tech cameras.
The ban comes just a day after China banned all Teslas from a resort town where the country’s secretive leadership group is holding a conference.
That means political scientist.
Or in this case, Chinese spy.
A retired German political scientist has been charged with spying for China for almost a decade, using the political contacts he developed while working for a think tank, the German federal prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday.
It said the man, identified as Klaus L. according to German reporting custom, had been recruited during a lecture trip to Shanghai in 2010, almost 10 years after joining the think tank, and had regularly passed on information until November 2019, in return for money and trips to China.
And they’re not very good at it either. The Germans, this time along with the French, are doing their “friends don’t spy on friends” routine again.
France and Germany are “seeking full clarity” on a report claiming that one of Denmark’s intelligence agencies helped the United States spy on several senior European officials, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron said Monday.
Just so you know who you’re dealing with, here are just a handful of the German cases of friends spying on friends I’ve collected over the years:
N-S-A, B-N-D, Spy-On-You-And-Me
“Spying Among Friends Is Never Acceptable”
“Friends Don’t Spy On Friends”
More “Friends Don’t Spy On Friends”
German Spies Don’t Spy On Friends
Good Lord. Is there any way one could make that sound any creepier?
“Ve must immediately pass this on to the Zentrale in Berlin!”
WHO, Germany launch new global hub for pandemic and epidemic intelligence – The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Federal Republic of Germany will establish a new global hub for pandemic and epidemic intelligence, data, surveillance and analytics innovation. The Hub, based in Berlin and working with partners around the world, will lead innovations in data analytics across the largest network of global data to predict, prevent, detect prepare for and respond to pandemic and epidemic risks worldwide.
“I am delighted that WHO chose Berlin as its location and invite partners from all around the world to contribute to the WHO hub.”
No story here. And certainly no “battleground.” When it comes to the Huawei 5G “issue,” Germany will do whatever China wants it to do.
Standing up and saying no to China’s communist leaders would only hurt their feelings – and German business prospects.
After Britain, Germany Emerges as Next 5G Battleground – Following Britain’s decision to ban Chinese tech firm Huawei from its 5G telecom network, Germany is emerging as the next potential battleground to check China’s expansion of influence in world affairs, which is increasingly seen as a serious challenge to democratic institutions worldwide.
“Does the chancellor really want to be the stumbling block preventing a united EU + transatlantic + 5Eyes stance?”
They can’t hardly spy on Germans anymore, at home and abroad. With foreigners here it’s not much better. And now…
German intelligence can’t spy on foreigners outside Germany – Germany’s Constitutional Court ruled on Tuesday that monitoring the internet traffic of foreign nationals abroad by the BND intelligence agency partly breaches the constitution.
Sheesh. A lot of German spies are going to need therapy. And worst of all, it doesn’t really matter whether Germans do any spying or not, and they know it. Whenever anything real goes down the tip-offs always come from a “befreundeten Nachrichtendienst” (allied intelligence service) anyway. They never say who this service is because everybody already knows and they’d rather not talk about it.
“A secret service that wants to protect democracy cannot trample on important democratic freedoms.”
Buried in the woods somewhere in West Germany thirty years ago.
Sophisticated Soviet spy radio discovered buried in former forest in Germany – Archaeologists digging for the remains of a Roman villa near the German city of Cologne have found a sophisticated Soviet spy radio that was buried there shortly before the fall of the Iron Curtain.
The spy radio was buried inside a large metal box that was hermetically sealed with a rubber ring and metal screws. Although the radio’s batteries had run down after almost 30 years in the ground, the box hissed with inrushing air when it was opened…
The scientists suspect agents would have used the spy radio to send secret reports back to the Soviet Union about observation of the Jülich Nuclear Research Centre, about 6 miles (10 km) west of where it was found; or of the military air base at Nörvenich, about the same distance to the southeast, where U.S. Pershing nuclear missiles were based until 1995.
Damn. Somebody needs to inform Angela Merkel immediately.
Germany doesn’t have many friends at all, I guess, because they’ve spied on just about everybody out there.
Report: US, Germany spied on countries for decades via Swiss encryption firm – Western intelligence acquired top secret information on global governments through their hidden control of an encryption firm, Crypto AG, according to media reports. Swiss authorities are investigating the allegations.
“The events under discussion started around 1945, and it is difficult to reconstruct them.”
Right? Not in Germany there isn’t.
To understand any German position on any international theme or issue you must understand that US-Amerika is somehow, in some way, in some form, a, if not the, negative factor in it. Once you understand and accept this, everything German politicians and diplomats say starts making sense. Take China and 5G for instance. Please.
The US ambassador to Berlin has sharply criticised German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier for suggesting a parallel between Chinese and US spying.
The row flared up over Germany’s decision not to ban Chinese tech giant Huawei from participation in the German 5G mobile phone network…
Meanwhile, a new opinion poll suggests a wide gap between the views of Americans and Germans on US-German relations.
Three-quarters of Americans surveyed were positive. But nearly two-thirds of Germans felt relations were bad, the Pew Research Center/Körber-Stiftung poll found.
“There is no moral equivalency between China and the United States and anyone suggesting it ignores history.”
An Afghan linguist has been arrested in the Rhineland for spying for Iran to get – now get this – information about German military operations in Afghanistan.
What German military operations in Afghanistan? We need to get our spies moving on this, too. And pronto. Talk about top secret stuff. Not even the Bundeswehr knows about any German military operations in Afghanistan.
The German armed forces (Bundeswehr) have up to 1,300 personnel in the international security force in Afghanistan, with a mandate currently running until the end of March.
Based in Mazar-e-Sharif, a northern city, the German contingent’s job is to train Afghan government troops, carry out surveillance and protect humanitarian missions. They have been involved in clashes with Taliban insurgents…
Clashes with the Taliban? A few fender benders with the Taliban or what? Or was it loud haggling over the price of a carpet?
Der gebürtige Afghane arbeitete für die Bundeswehr als Sprachauswerter und landeskundlicher Berater. Für den iranischen Geheimdienst soll er bereits seit mehreren Jahren gearbeitet haben.
Observing Hermann 