How did they gather all that information without everybody carrying handheld surveillance monitors?

You know, like we do now?

Very impressive.

Stasi: How the GDR kept its citizens under surveillance – Do all intelligence agents live like James Bond? Not those who worked for East Germany’s Ministry for State Security (Stasi). A new book reveals the mundane lives of the agents.

“Comrades, we must know everything!”

Germany first to figure out what’s going on with Chinese 5G components

If you start counting at the end of the line.

Why Chinese technology set off alarm bells in Germany – Even as the German government moves to bar components made by China’s Huawei and ZTE from core parts of the country’s 5G networks, some German companies are looking to work with Chinese firms in other critical areas…

The ban comes as Chinese technology firms are increasingly viewed with suspicions for their allegedly too close ties to the government in Beijing. Especially Beijing’s drive to make companies like Huawei and ZTE world leaders in high-tech sectors makes Western governments wary of giving them too much influence on their national infrastructures.

So, wait a minute.

Are you trying to tell me that diplomats are spies?

Yikes. I honestly had no idea.

Russia buying spies to make up for expelled diplomats, German agency says – Russia has turned increasingly to blackmail and financial incentives to hire Germans to spy for it after the blow dealt to its intelligence services by Europe’s expulsion of some 600 Russian diplomats, Germany’s domestic security service said.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) said Russian intelligence services were spending big to recruit agents in Germany despite Western attempts to limit their operations since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Chronic overwork?”

In the German army?

Damn. Dodging responsibility is more stressful than I imagined.

German army officer jailed for spying for Russia – A German military officer has been sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for spying for Russia.

The man, identified only as Thomas H, had been a captain in the army’s procurement office when he contacted Russian embassy in Berlin and passed on secret military information…

The man claimed that chronic overwork had impaired his ability to think critically about his actions.

Spies and saboteurs?

The Chinese? No way.

Communist governments would never do that kind of thing. They just aren’t those kind of people.

Germany could ban China’s Huawei, ZTE from parts of 5G networks – Germany is considering banning certain components from Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE in its telecoms networks, a government source said, in a potentially significant move to address security concerns.

“This is a sign that the German government may finally be taking China-related risks to national security seriously. But after years of dithering, the German 5G network is deeply dependent on Chinese suppliers. It will take many years to unwind this.”

German Of The Day: Abhängigkeit

That means dependency.

In this case, being dependent on China.

Germany planning to ban Huawei, ZTE from parts of 5G networks.

There is no evidence that China is spying with the help of the telecom equipment suppliers’ technology. Nevertheless, they are to be banned from the 5-G network – for fear of dependencies.

My Car Is Spying On Me

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.

Germans Not Sure Who They Can Spy On Anymore

They can’t hardly spy on Germans anymore, at home and abroad. With foreigners here it’s not much better. And now…

Spies

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.”

The Spy Who Left Me

Buried in the woods somewhere in West Germany thirty years ago.

Spy

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.

More Friends Don’t Spy On Friends Stuff

Damn. Somebody needs to inform Angela Merkel immediately.

Friends

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.”