

Germany says Cold War tactics don't help EU-US trade talks - NonEUCitizen
http://news.yahoo.com/germanys-greens-snowden-safe-haven-europe-080014894.html

======
anon1385
I'm not sure the protection of the German state is something the US will care
about:

 _Khalid El-Masri (born June 29, 1963) is a German citizen who was mistakenly
abducted by the Macedonian Police, and handed-over to the U.S. CIA, whose
officers interrogated, sodomized and tortured him. While in CIA hands, he was
flown to Afghanistan, where he was held in a black site, interrogated, beaten,
strip-searched and subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, tantamount to
torture. After El-Masri held hunger strikes, and was detained for four months
in the "Salt Pit", the CIA finally admitted his arrest and torture were a
mistake and released him._

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khaled_al-
Masri](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khaled_al-Masri)

~~~
andrewcooke
snowden is a white american. americans don't (in general - see reactions here
to nsa) care about foreigners (especially coloured ones - guantanamo), but
they get upset if a white american is hurt. so this won't happen with him.

~~~
artto
Remember Bradley Manning?

~~~
andrewcooke
ah, true.

he's gay? maybe that makes him an honorary black? i don't fully understand.
any americans here can help me? is there anyone you stick up for? or is it
just a big game of last under the bus wins?

~~~
pekk
Realize that you are here hating on all Americans, because supposedly they all
hate on every minority group.

------
rumcajz
Yes. Exactly. This is the least we can do in the Europe. There are at least 3
reasons to do so:

1\. This way we can signal we mean it with the democracy thing. 2\. We can
prevent random despot to claim moral superiority to EU because of granting the
asylum. 3\. EU is relatively safe from US revenge, unlike smaller countries.

~~~
kriro
The fact that Germany was spied on massively and it didn't seem that they were
all that aware of it and the fact that the US has well established channels
from the cold war there would mean that I wouldn't exactly feel safe if that
was my safe haven.

Would be interesting to create a "how safe are you from foreign nations'
assassination/capturing etc. here" index.

For the pairing Germany-USA I'd say not very safe.

~~~
bayesianhorse
The CIA can get you anywhere, as can Mossad or pretty much any other agency.
Heck, even Libya managed attacks in western countries. It's just that
diplomatic repercussions or outright war are usually enough of a deterrent.

In this particular case, the US can't do anything about it. Obama said he
won't use fighter jets to get Snowden. If he fails on even that concrete
specific and understandable promise, then he can kiss a good deal of American
influence in the world goodbye.

~~~
gngeal
_Obama said he won 't use fighter jets to get Snowden_

Meet Suspiciously Specific Denial:
[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SuspiciouslySpecificDe...](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SuspiciouslySpecificDenial/RealLife)
(alternatvely combined with Exact Words:
[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ExactWords](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ExactWords))

------
nolok
French's Green party made the same request during the night (asking to grant
him asylum in France)

[http://www.lemonde.fr/technologies/article/2013/07/01/eelv-d...](http://www.lemonde.fr/technologies/article/2013/07/01/eelv-
demande-a-la-france-d-accorder-l-asile-a-snowden_3439255_651865.html)

------
simfoo
Please, whenever you read something about German politicians these days, keep
in mind that there's an election this fall...

~~~
PavlovsCat
Then why isn't Merkel demanding the same?

~~~
LinaLauneBaer
Because she is from a conservative party which is more or less "okay" with
surveillance.

She is not saying the same because she wants to play conservative and
differentiate herself from the Greens/Left Party and SPD.

~~~
qwertzlcoatl
More or less is inaccurate. They are pushing strong surveillance acts. In fact
just today the "Bestandsdatenauskunft" was made law. The law means, “that
police and intelligence services will in the future be allowed to obtain
extremely personal information about mobile phone users, and do so with the
press of a button and without having to face any major legal hurdles”.

------
bartman
When they say "Germany's third largest party" it's important to know that they
only hold about 11% of the seats of the German Parliament (Bundestag) right
now and are unlikely to affect matters in this case.

~~~
sveme
True, but due to proportional representation, smaller parties play a much
larger role in German politics than, say, the UK or the US. Just a shift of
about three percent from the current coalition of CDU and FDP to the SPD and
Greens in the upcoming election would end Merkel's reign. And the NSA story
might be just the event that moves those three percent from the current
coalition to the opposition.

~~~
rwissmann
Yes, if anything the Greens as the third largest party play a much bigger role
in German politics than someone from an American or Commonwealth background
would intuitively expect.

------
NonEUCitizen
Also, from Der Spiegel:

[http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?from=de&to=en&a=h...](http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?from=de&to=en&a=http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/spaehaffaere-
trittin-fordert-schutz-fuer-snowden-von-deutschland-a-908698.html)

------
ramblerman
I'm actually suprised Russia,Ecuador, and Iceland were the only viable
candidates mentioned for Snowden.

Although not a certainty I would imagine Belgium, France, and Germany would be
good candidates also.

~~~
JanezStupar
That is because beyond rhetoric. EU countries are mere colonies of the US and
EU politicians will not do anything if they do not get a nod from the US.

EU is not independent and is a mere satellite of the US. I feel sorry for feel
good hipsters that currently feel superior to the US in terms of freedom and
democracy.

~~~
ramblerman
"I feel sorry for feel good hipsters that currently feel superior to the US in
terms of freedom and democracy."

hmm, not sure why you felt the need to add that part. Were you even responding
to my question or just reading off an internal script :P

As far as freedom goes, I can only speak for Belgium, my country. I am
certainly envious of the economic freedom you see in the US. We have slid a
little too far to the left over here. We also don't have the same level of
free speech as the US:
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_revisionism_(negatio...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_revisionism_\(negationism\)#Domestic_law))

That being said, I won't be jailed for smoking a joint or experimenting with
psychedelics. Our government isn't secretive and elusive in the way yours is
and I'm not terrified of ever landing in prison here.

~~~
67726e
> We also don't have the same level of free speech as the US

Don't take free speech at face value. While theoretically you do have free
speech, we have a large amount of overly-broad crimes one can commit. If you
do or say something that a person of power doesn't like, they can and will use
a different law to get you for it. It then boils down to, one being willing to
spend years of one's life and absurd amounts of money trying to fight this
charge, or just dealing with the charge and hoping it doesn't end horribly.

------
mtgx
"Trittin said that in response to the latest revelations, the EU should
suspend exchanging banking and flight data with the United States."

I wasn't aware the US actually "exchanges" any passenger data with the EU. I
thought it's just EU giving them the data. So he probably means "EU needs to
stop giving data to US".

Usually, these deals are one-sided, in that they only serve US.

~~~
tome
> Usually, these deals are one-sided, in that they only serve US.

Then why would the EU enter into them?

~~~
LinaLauneBaer
So that the US can do the "dirty work".

We give the data to the US and, of course, the US only uses the data to fight
terrorism.

I think our politicians knew that the US was doing more with the data than
they said. But since this kind of data usage is not really aceptable in large
parts of the EU we simply gave the data to the US to get the job done.

Then the politicians could say "we are not using your data and the US is only
using it to fight terrorism" but in fact there was much more going on and
everybody knew that.

~~~
muuck
Not sure what you're implying here. The EU gives data to the US about
Europeans flying to the US. Then the US does the EU's dirt work? And after
this "dirty work" is processed does the US play the data back to the EU?

~~~
LinaLauneBaer
Yes. That is what I am saying. It is not only the data about europeans flying
to the US. The US also knows almost every bank transaction made via SWIFT...

------
lispm
It would be great, but in reality Snowden would not be safe in Germany. We
still have tens of thousands US military personel (the US central commands for
Europe and Africa are here) and lots of US intelligence agencies active here.
The US were also using Germany to transfer their secret prisoners to the
torture prisons in East Europe.

[http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/cia-folter-in-polen-im-
wa...](http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/cia-folter-in-polen-im-wald-des-
schreckens-1.1593451)

------
fnordfnordfnord
> _Seibert (Merkel 's representative) brushed aside a suggestion by the
> opposition Greens that the EU should provide a safe haven for Snowden._

Merkel isn't on board yet.

------
Lapsa
i don't mind him putting tent in my garden too. would get bit cold when autumn
hits though.

------
Uchikoma
Not here in Berlin please, I don't want Reaper strikes here. Thanks.

