
Germans accuse U.S. of Stasi tactics before Obama visit - forgotAgain
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/11/cnews-us-usa-security-germany-idCABRE95A0T820130611
======
woah
Not surprising. With the Gestapo, and then the Stasi, the Germans have an
extensive cultural memory of the effects of comprehensive government
surveillance of their lives. They are still surprisingly tolerant of the long
term military occupation of their country by the US. It would have been
interesting if Snowden had holed up in Germany instead of HK. I wonder if the
inevitable US military extradition would have tested the tolerance of the
Germans.

~~~
Cass
There's nothing surprising about the German tolerance of the US military
bases, considering that they do nothing whatsoever to interfere with our lives
or inconvenience us in any way, but do provide quite a lot of jobs. These are
mostly medical or training facilities, many of them operated jointly by
American and German forces, not some occupying force that's intent on
overrunning our government or controlling the citizenry.

As far as public opinion goes, this is a complete non-issue, and I strongly
suspect that if public opinion turned so far as to make it an issue, the US
would withdraw their troops before entering into a war with a powerful western
nation that would almost inevitably turn into another world war. This is
really not what I'd call an occupation.

~~~
onli
Isn't the US already (slowly) withdrawing/reducing the stationed troops?

Besides, germany wouldn't really have a chance. The few nuclear rockets we
control would probably not be ready in time. The USA could just bomb germany
down, like it was planned in case of a war with the UDSSR.

~~~
Swizec
Except for the tiny fact that you attack Germany, you attack EU. And that's
pretty much a world war right there. Nobody wants another world war, don't be
silly.

M.A.D. still exists by the way. It's still why all major nations are at peace
and why the EU gave so much flak to the US a few years ago when Bush wanted to
install a nuclear shield. He later had to back down or serious stuff would've
happened. (afaik)

Also, according to wikipedia, Europe has 150 to 240 nuclear warheads. Plenty
enough to destroy all US major cities.

~~~
gamblor956
Oh no! The EU! A political body which requires unanimity to make _any
decision_! We tremble in fear...

In all seriousness though, the EU does not currently extend to defense; it is
currently only a political and economic union. France and Germany have
proposed extending the EU to include common defense, but as of today it had
not yet been ratified by either the European Council or the member states.
See, e.g., the Treaty of Lisbon. (Note that the Treaty of Lisbon technically
removes the unanimity requirement in place of a "double majority" threshold
(meaning >55% of vote from >65% of countries) beginning in 2014.)

~~~
dsuth
And of course, war has no impact on politics and tightly interwoven
economies...

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salimmadjd
We are in the Stasi 2.0 era now in US.

Everything you do, buy, places you visit, people you socialize, your
interests, opinions, everything you say, etc. is under surveillance. Funny how
East Germans would risk their lives just to escape their Stasi-controlled
world.

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danbruc
The headline sounds like an official government statement but then this guy is
no one I ever heard of and the only quote I could find does not even mention
the word Stasi.

    
    
      American surveillance (literally: compulsive checking) goes definitely to far if
      it interferes that much with the privacy of internet users. Something like this is
      unthinkable here. I thought we had overcome this era with the downfall of the DDR.
    

It is just ridiculous what they made out of this (unless I just failed to find
the complete statement).

~~~
morsch
Well, he is a member of the European Parliament, so there's that. Most MEPs
aren't very widely know, though, even compared to members of the national
assemblies. They also have the luxury of being in a sort of permanent
opposition against national governments and the more powerful parts of the EU
government.

I agree that the story is overblown, although the concern about the whole
thing in Germany and all of Europe is obviously very real and hopefully will
turn into a greater concern over what our own governments are doing. I hope a
lot of conservatives are caught finger pointing in the next few days, if
nothing else just to see them squirm when they're supposed to wave through the
next set of laws curtailing internet freedom.

------
return0
this is a great movie about surveilance in the east germany. I don't know how
accurate though.

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/)

~~~
zalew
[trying to say without spoilers]

the inaccurate/ridiculous part is that he couldn't do what he did because
every one of them had another agent(s) on them precisely to prevent such
occurences. they spied on and controlled each other just like they did on
citizens. other than that - great movie, and depiction of the strong influence
such agencies had on personal lives (to make someone or destroy someone) is
accurate.

you can also check out
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_%282012_film%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_%282012_film%29)
with a bit similar theme.

~~~
flyinRyan
My understanding was the only reason what he did worked was because the whole
thing was winding down. 2 years prior and things wouldn't have worked out so
well at all.

~~~
zalew
There were thaw periods around the countries of the block and agencies
sometimes tended to chill out a bit with their activites, but on the other
hand on Berlin's memorials you can find people whose deaths are dated even
just a few months before the falling of the wall, so I don't know, to be
honest.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_Others#Reception](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_Others#Reception)

 _Slavoj Žižek, reviewing the film for In These Times, criticized the film 's
perceived softpedaling of the oppressiveness of the German Democratic
Republic, as well as structure of the playwright's character, which he thought
was not very likely under a hard communist regime.[23] Anna Funder, the author
of the book Stasiland, in a review for The Guardian called The Lives of Others
a "superb film" despite not being true to reality. She claims that it was not
possible for a Stasi operative to have hidden information from superiors
because Stasi employees themselves were watched and almost always operated in
teams_

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PavlovsCat
> _" The more a society monitors, controls and observes its citizens, the less
> free it is," she said._

Okay, it's not Merkel herself who said that. But she sits still while people
do, right?

I remember seeing some random youtube video of Merkel giving a speech during
an election campaign, talking (nay, bragging) about video surveillance of
inner cities (something she basically gives the CDU credit for, which "fought"
for that), saying roughly: _" some people say that's only useful to catch
parking violations, but if you don't deal with parking violations, you don't
have to be surprised if it gets worse."_

To have Merkel be indignated on my behalf is a DISGUSTING idea. She's
opportunistic and spineless, she stands for exactly nothing (other than
"Security and Prosperity" of course; just like Kohl she wouldn't recognize
what makes life great for decent people even after she squashed it). She,
Obama, and all the other people who had their chances, in some cases decades
of them, should consider just kindly shutting the fuck up, and sticking to
their own, hopefully doomed, bandwagons.

------
Smrchy
The last time Obama held a public speech in Berlin he was cheered like he was
Michael Jackson and the Pope in one person. This was before he was elected for
his first term.

Back then there was no need to preselect his audience. Tens of thousands just
came to celebrate him. It will be interesting to see how he is greeted by the
German public this time. In Berlin. At the Branderburger Tor. Will he talk
about freedom?

------
pvnick
"Mr. Obama, tear down this PRISM"

------
uh_oh
Thumbs up for this coming from the conservative party as well. As others have
said, this really is a bi-partisan issue and we should build as broad a
coalition of the unwilling as possible.

~~~
fosap
I do not expect to much. Our governments are extremly careful not to interfere
with US interests. Stasi documents about the CIA? Unlawfully given to the CIA
and not published. The man responsible is now the president. Merkel, started
her career in the pro-dictatorship eastern CDU. Worked for the FDJ (
_somewhat_ GDR equivalent to the Hilter youth) as PR manager.

Not doing anything against the abduction of Kurznatz by the CIA. "Opposing"
the Iraq war, but allow the US air fields to operate. It goes on and on and
on. This is just a little rethorics. See also: Isle "facebook" Eigner.

------
wahsd
Stasi.? Germans are simply shying away from comparing it to the Nazis'
unimaginable wet dream because of a very self-conscious sensitivity about the
matter. But don't fool yourselves, ignoring other unrelated, horrible outcomes
that were a consequence of the times, this level of surveillance is by far
worse than anything that has ever existed in all of human history. It is
tantamount to mind reading, and without a doubt on the exact trail to that
outcome.

~~~
danbruc
When it comes to surveillance the Stasi did a way better job than any NS
organisation.

~~~
sentenza
While I principally agree with you, I must add that _the_ data protection
related historical event that impressed me most is how the Nazis used the
excellent Dutch census data that fell into their hands to round up the Jews of
the Netherlands. I don't know how widespread knowledge of this is (I was
taught it in school), but I've heard it brought up a few times in discussions
about personal data.

~~~
rdouble
The Stasi weren't involved with that, as they did not exist until 1950.

~~~
danbruc
_[...] how the Nazis used the excellent Dutch census data [...]_

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bejar37
Honestly, I'm starting to feel like the lack of comments from European leaders
about the infringement of non-American's data might be because they know they
might be the next to get caught with their hands in the honey pot. I can't
tell if I'm just starting to be part of the tin-foil hat crowd though.

~~~
NameNickHN
If they could, they would implement something like PRISM as fast as possible.
The German parliament tries for years now to establish data collection.

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wedesoft
We Germans shouldn't forget that in 2009 our government tried to implement a
similar kind of surveillance. This lead to Tauss leaving the social democrats
and join the Pirate Party.

[http://www.wedesoft.de/tauss-against-
censorship.html](http://www.wedesoft.de/tauss-against-censorship.html)

------
znowi
Speaking of Stasi, I would like to recommend a great movie called _The Lives
of Others_

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/)

------
Shivetya
So they are mad why? They didn't think of it first or that all this exposure
of the US version might mean someone will expose theirs?

To be honest I am not sure if any of these governments is trust worthy in this
regard.

------
craigyk
While we are pointing fingers... why are the Germans so set on laying the
economic foundation for WWIII? We get it, you feel like you shouldn't have to
rescue "lazy bums", but get over it already and suck it up. The US massively
spent too reconstruct Germany after WWII, partially because of the realization
that post-WWI financial destitution was part of the groundwork for WWII.

It's not like your entirely blameless here either Germany, your banks made the
questionable decision to lend money to those lazy bums so they could buy back
German goods.

