

Report charges U.S. with conducting illegal operations from German soil - teamgb
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/11/15/208731/news-report-charges-us-with-conducting.html

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pkinsky
>“The American Embassy also comments and rejects the reports as innuendo. They
are stating the United States ‘are not kidnapping and torturing on principle.’
This is a daring claim. Only seven months ago a commission made up of
Democrats and Republicans called it ‘undeniable’ that the United States
tortured inmates following the terror attacks of 2001. Even President Barack
Obama said in 2009 that the American practice of waterboarding was torture.”

Schadenfreude is my favorite German loan word.

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antonius
The title of the article makes it sound like the US has damaged ties with
Germany. Apparently not:

 _“The worst part? Germany doesn’t even seem to mind.”_

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Kliment
The government does not seem to mind. A number of us living here do.

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waps
And what are the government's own spying practices ? Ah :

[http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/209/1/lan...](http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/209/1/lang,en/)

(please note that the only thing the court did was place limits. Every ISP
that has lines in Germany is still forced to (a) spy on all it's customers and
report the data to the German government (b) allow Germany to tap any of it's
customers. It's just that the resulting data can't be used in civil suits)

Given that Germany does this to it's own citizens, isn't it exactly as bad as
the US ? Sure, it looks like the German government is somewhat less capable
when it comes to spying than the NSA is, but it's not fundamentally different.
And of course, that could be an illusion.

I seem to remember having this article about how Germany sold an old diesel
submarine capable of undersea fiber tapping to Israel. I can't seem to find
the article, but it does mean Germany has these subs. I find it hard to
believe they're unused. Here's an article about the British version :

[http://intelnews.org/2013/08/29/01-1331/](http://intelnews.org/2013/08/29/01-1331/)

I'm in telecommunications and I know for a fact that all northwest european
countries have these demands on ISPs. Germany's no exception.

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beloch
So... What the U.S. is doing is A-OK because things might be worse in the
former stomping grounds of the Stasi? Allrighty then!

(Seriously though, if a population that includes former East-Germans is
complaining...)

