
Der Spiegel Targeted by US Intelligence - cyphunk
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/the-nsa-and-american-spies-targeted-spiegel-a-1042023.html
======
clamprecht
The thing that I realized when reading this article title today is that my
internal reaction was something like "Ok, nothing new." Whereas 10 or 15 years
ago, my reaction would have been, "another tinfoil hat article."

~~~
refurb
I get your point, but all you need to do is take a look at the FOIA releases
from the CIA to see they've _always_ been doing this.[1]

[http://www.foia.cia.gov/historical-
collections](http://www.foia.cia.gov/historical-collections)

~~~
CyberDildonics
10 years ago people would call those conspiracy theories.

~~~
x5n1
The next scary thought is how many other theories are not theories at all.
They say every lie has some basis in truth. Reptilians anyone ;D

------
mark_l_watson
Interesting article.

In the last several years I have been surprised how many Der Spiegal articles
accurately (apparently) documented things that embarrassed the U.S.
government.

Too bad U.S. news media does not do as thorough of a job with their reporting.

~~~
carboncopy
You must be joking.

The Pentagon Papers were broken by the New York Times. The "Deep Throat"
espionage controversy with President Nixon's administration was broken by the
Washington Post. American filmmaker Linda Poitras introduced the person
responsible for the largest intelligence leak in U.S. history (Snowden) to an
American journalist Glenn Greenwald, who previously wrote opinion pieces for
various American newspapers, including the Cato Institute. At the time,
Greenwald was writing for UK newspaper The Guardian, which at the time and
still does maintain a significant office in the U.S. [1]

Further pieces based off of the NSA leaks were written by journalists at the
Washington Post. Only after a few months did Der Spiegel write any articles.
Oh, and the source of Der Spiegel's leaked documents? American software
developer and activist Jacob Appelbaum. Hell, he even wrote their most
prominent NSA articles. [2]

American journalism is the most robust source of sunlight for U.S. government
secrets.

I get it, one can find all sorts of individual cases of American news outlets
letting the public down. But in aggregate, no other country's news
organization comes close.

[1] (March 2013) [http://www.theguardian.com/info/about-guardian-
us/contact](http://www.theguardian.com/info/about-guardian-us/contact)

[2] (July 2013) [http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-
whi...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/interview-with-
whistleblower-edward-snowden-on-global-spying-a-910006.html)

~~~
user
>American filmmaker Linda Poitras introduced the person responsible for the
largest intelligence leak in U.S. history (Snowden) to an American journalist
Glenn Greenwald, who previously wrote opinion pieces for various American
newspapers, including the Cato Institute.

Now both Poitras and Greenwald are afraid to go back to US, though. I wonder
why would they avoid the most journalist-friendly country on Earth?

~~~
chinathrow
No they are not afraid. They both went back again.

~~~
user
>No they are not afraid.

They both live outside of US now and have mentioned their reasons countless
times. Laura Poitras explained why she's staying in Germany and how she does
not take any materials with her during her trips to US, for example, at the
last CCC:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmKqdMDastM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmKqdMDastM)

~~~
chinathrow
That is all valid and well known. I just stated that they were not afraid to
return home recently - or they wouldn't have been back for a visit.

~~~
user
They might not have feared for their lives, but they obviously are afraid to
have any information on them when crossing the borders and they are simply
afraid to do their job as a journalists in US.

~~~
pyre
"Crossing the borders" being the operative phrase there. You have fewer rights
at border crossings than living your life within the confines of the border,
unfortunately. This says nothing about the quality of US media (whatever the
state of said quality is).

~~~
user
>You have fewer rights at border crossings than living your life within the
confines of the border, unfortunately.

Now you'll say that location of Guantanamo Bay prison outside of US
jurisdiction is an 'unfortunate accident' as well. Both seem quite purposeful
decisions to me.

And yes, the fact that two probably most important journalists of modern times
have both chosen to go into exile just to do their job, even though both love
their country, - I think this actually says quite a bit about the freedom of
press in the said country.

~~~
pyre
> chosen to go into exile just to do their job

Others have already mentioned that they don't carry their _work_ into the US,
but they, themselves, still travel to the US. This is hardly the "exile" that
you want it to be (to prove your point).

------
camhenlin
It makes sense that US Intelligence is spying on foreign entities -- that's
their job. Foreign entities are not protected by the US constitution and are
not covered by the Fourth Amendment and have no right to privacy from the NSA,
CIA, etc.

~~~
richmarr
According to the US constitution, foreigners don't have any rights at all.

In other news, foreigners don't look to the US constitution before deciding
whether to be cross about being spied on.

~~~
user
>According to the US constitution, foreigners don't have any rights at all.

Legal scholars disagree with you:
[http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?ar...](http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1302&context=facpub)

~~~
csandreasen
Reading through that paper, it seems pretty clear that the author is
discussing the rights of foreigners inside the US. The idea that the US should
be upholding US constitutional rights for non-US citizens residing in another
country's sovereign territory is not something that legal scholars are
arguing.

~~~
user
I posted paper to answer blatant "according to Constitution foreigners don't
have any rights at all". Regarding other countries - they obviously have their
own bills, laws and regulations. The idea that US citizens residing in other
countries are exempt from local laws just on the basis that they are doing
service to US is ridiculous.

~~~
richmarr

      ... blatant... rediculous...
    

You seem to be arguing against an assertion I never made. Not sure what to
clarify. Maybe I wasn't clear somewhere, or maybe you've taken something out
of context, I don't know. Might help to go read the thread from the top.

Let me know if you can't figure out where our wires got crossed and I'll try
and clarify.

------
GabrielF00
>The fact that the CIA and NSA were prepared to reveal an ongoing surveillance
operation to the Chancellery underlines the importance they attached to the
leaks, say sources in Washington. The NSA, the sources say, were aware that
the German government would know from then on that the US was spying in
Berlin.

I'm sure that the Germans were shocked, shocked, to find that an intelligence
agency was spying in Berlin.

~~~
lispm
Well, given that Germany officially hosts huge amounts of NSA and CIA staff,
US military, US Airbases, US military commands, ... nobody is shocked.

The US lost a lot support in public opinion and people are increasingly
demanding that the US removes these installations, troops and intelligence
groups from Germany. Also the US will have a hard time to sell communication
services, IT services and IT hardware in Germany (and Europe).

Why host the NSA in Germany, when it acts against our interests?

What shocks Germans is this: how very little their own government acts against
the threat to our freedom created by our 'friends' and 'partners'.

~~~
allendoerfer
>What shocks Germans is this: how very little their own government acts
against the threat to our freedom created by our 'friends' and 'partners'.

That does not shock me at all. It makes me sad, that these days, there is
simply no time for justice. There are so many complex scandals the average
citizen cannot understand coming up after each other, by the time a scandal is
investigated it is not interesting any more. So the public has largely just
given up caring. There is some outrage but overall the sentiment seems to be:
"Well, that's what politicians do."

Merkel hired those genius consultants, who taught her how to act, dress and
hold her hands so that she is immune to public outcry. We know she is
brilliant but she comes across as being just as stupid as we are but totally
upright. She would never enrich herself or get caught being openly corrupt.
She is just to boring for that, which is exactly what the German people want
their leader to be. Every other politician would have lost his job so many
times by now, but that woman can get away with everything. She is made out of
teflon, these scandals just bounce of of her. And it is not, that we do not
notices this: She famously destroyed all her political enemies a few years ago
- after all the number two is 72 years old now. It makes me sad, that it works
nevertheless.

The biggest political scandal in recent years was the fall of president Wulff
[0]. There have been minor but simple accusations that the public could
understand and was outrageous about. No complex monetary system, no difficult
cold-war conflict, no highly technical espionage stuff. He was corrupt, but on
a scale that the average person is corrupt. Take a small present here and
there, take photos with people you should not take photos with. You cannot get
away with something simple like that, especially when you handle the crisis
badly.

The logical conclusion is, that we get borderline psychopaths and/or actors as
politicians, who manage to build up an image of total boringness. They cannot
be educated in any field, because their field actually is managing their own
image. It makes me sad, that you are more likely to stay in office when you
seem boring and stupid instead of intelligent and innovative. We ended up with
a Kafkaesque bureaucratic system where everybody just maintains the status quo
and tries to separate him- or herself as much from actual politics as
possible. This of course leaves the actual decisionmaking to institutions like
the intelligence agencies or big corporations and is how we end up with stuff
like this.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causa_Wulff](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causa_Wulff)

------
h4x3r
Any one else see all this news as;

"Misdirection. What the eyes see and the ears hear, the mind believes."

Swordfish @
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxTHeyKuXGw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxTHeyKuXGw)

------
psykovsky
Why do I smell politics all around? Is it cynicism, or?...

------
csandreasen
A couple of things...

1) The first half of the headline reads "An Attack on Press Freedom". How
exactly was freedom of the press attacked? Did the US or German governments
stop Der Spiegel from publishing something? Were they blackmailed into
suppressing a story (but for some reason not so for this one)? As far as the
story indicates, the only action that was taken was to move the person accused
of leaking from one department to another. But, hey, "An Attack on Press
Freedom" gets more people to view those 9 ad banners scattered throughout the
article...

2) I just read this article twice over, and I can't actually see any evidence
that US intelligence services were targeting Der Spiegel. Somehow the CIA
station chief finds out that someone in the German Department Six is passing
information to Der Spiegel, and informs the head of Department Six. They don't
actually give any indication as to how the CIA got that information, but just
state that it was most likely the NSA spying on Der Spiegel as if it were a
foregone conclusion. How do they know this? I can think of a number of other
situations where the CIA may have received this information...

    
    
      - The CIA had a source inside Der Spiegel
      - The CIA was spying on their source (not Der Spiegel)
      - The NSA was spying on their source
      - The CIA/NSA was spying on a third party that knew of the leaks
      - The source was drunk at a bar and bragged about it to or within earshot of a CIA agent
      - One of the journalists was drunk at a bar and bragged about it.
      - The CIA/NSA was spying on Russian intelligence (or any other country in the region) and that foreign intelligence service was doing any of the above
      - etc. ...
    

I accept that they don't want to reveal their source, but there's no mention
of an anonymous source, or documents acquired by Der Spiegel, or anything else
substantiate the US targeting the news outlet. As far as I can tell, this is
the extent of their attribution:

 _Research conducted by SPIEGEL has determined the existence of CIA and NSA
files filled with a large number of memos pertaining to the work of the German
newsmagazine._

Really? That's it? They somehow know that documents exist which somehow make
reference to a global news outlet known for breaking headlines concerning the
work of these intelligence agencies? What kind of research was conducted, and
what do these documents actually say? For god's sake - Der Spiegel is one of
the few news agencies that has the whole Snowden trove and regularly releases
documents from it, but they can't show anything from there proving their
claim?

Not too long ago, the Sunday Times in England ran a story claiming that
documents stolen by Edward Snowden were in the hands of Chinese and Russian
intelligence services, relying solely on anonymous sources in the British
government. They were rightly lambasted for it in a number of other media
outlets. Der Spiegel is now doing almost the exact same thing.

~~~
themartorana
Freedom of the Press includes freedom from government intrusion, freedom from
intimidation, and freedom from prosecution for factual reporting.

In the least, this is intimidation and intrusion.

~~~
csandreasen
How so? Der Spiegel didn't even know they were being spied on (that is,
assuming they were). No one stepped in to prosecute them, no one threatened
them, and no one interfered with their ability to publish any story. If
anything, that fact that nothing has come of this since the leaker was
discovered back in 2011 sends a clear signal that the German press can publish
any story it likes and their government won't lift a finger to interfere.

~~~
user
>no one interfered with their ability to publish any story

How do you know it? What sort of interference would you expect these days
anyway? The secret order signed by Angela Merkel herself ordering to stop the
story or face lifetime in prison?

FOIA records on FBI and CIA show again and again that western governments are
not ashamed to use misinformation, defamation, subversion and provocations. In
fact, they have become extremely skillful at these hard-to-prove-yet-so-
effective-against-civilian tactics.

~~~
csandreasen
> How do you know it?

The burden of proof rests on the person alleging it happened, not the person
saying there is no evidence. You're asking me to concede that something must
have happened in secret unless I can prove a negative. To top it off, Der
Spiegel very strongly suggests that they just recently learned of the matter
in the editor's note on the left hand of the page. Nowhere in their reporting
(or, to my knowledge, anyone else's reporting) are they claiming that the
government forced them to withhold a story.

> FOIA records on FBI and CIA show again and again ...

Could you provide links to these FOIA documents?

~~~
user
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO)

~~~
csandreasen
I'd like to think that discussions on HN ought to be a little more rigorous
than dropping unexplained links to a pre-FISA purely domestic FBI program from
half a century ago when discussing today's interactions between the CIA,
German government and German press...

------
andreyf
Well, German intelligence can't spy on Der Spiegel legally, so getting tips
from a friendly intelligence agency as to who is leaking info to the press
seems to make a lot of sense.

~~~
chinathrow
No for fucks sake, it does not make a lot of sense.

If we allow this shit to happen, we lose as a democracy. How on earth do you
think it could be even remotely acceptable to spy on a journalistic outlet?

/rant

~~~
carbocation
I don't see andreyf's comment as being supportive; rather, it comes across as
sardonic but lucid.

~~~
chinathrow
I hope OP will reply - stating that some totally unacceptable thing "makes
sense" does indeed sound supportive, at least to my naive soul.

~~~
carbocation
It's written in a wry, underhanded way, invoking the mindset of someone at the
intelligence agencies. I really see no need for the OP to clarify. But if I'm
wrong, and OP's true position differs from ours, what of it?

 _Edit: chinathrow is actually correct, I thought OP was being sardonic but
they seem to be sincere based on their follow-up comments._

~~~
task_queue
Poe's law at work.

~~~
chinathrow
Ha! Good one! Had to look it up though :)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law)

------
stefantalpalaru
Now that the entire planet is under East Germany style surveillance, I have
only one question: where do I go to turn my neighbors in? They really piss me
off with their loud music and I'm pretty sure they say forbidden jokes meant
to undermine the establishment.

~~~
junto
I believe that you just report them to the police and say that they are armed
and dangerous. The police army then storm their house and throw stun grenades
into the beds of toddlers.

Nah, would never happen in real life....

------
mineshaftgap
Some day the people of Germany will rise up.

------
jotm
Assange was denied asylum in France, continues living in the Ecuador embassy
in the UK.

You go, Ecuador! Fuck the system!

------
tosseraccount
Spiegel targets me by loading up a bunch of cookies.

Sounds like pot calling the kettle black.

