

FB event to walk to NSA's Dagger Complex results in a visit by the German police - robfreudenreich
http://www.thelocal.de/national/20130715-50859.html

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sschueller
What I don't understand is why the Germans allow the US to setup a base that
spies on them. According to the Spiegel the base was setup without local
approval. Also also locals have been concerned for a long time because of
possible radiation from the large antennas but for what ever reason the local
government cant even inquire about it.

Imagine a German military base in the middle of the US that has who knows what
kind of equipment on it and the local town can't question it.

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goatforce5
There's a similar base in the UK at Menwith Hill. They don't welcome visitors
as such, but activist/comedian Mark Thomas discovered that due to a quirk in a
law, it was legal to fly a hot air balloon over it.

So that's what he did:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBksQsAZ2hQ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBksQsAZ2hQ)
(short version)

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epWTJUajIdI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epWTJUajIdI)
(full episode)

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Bosence
That's just simply fantastic.

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shrikant
Mark Thomas is hilarious.

He once organised a bunch of people who went to the big Apple Store on Regent
Street and opened a webpage on all the devices there. The contents of said
page informed readers (potential buyers) that they could get the same devices
at a nearby high street retailer who didn't indulge in shady tax avoidance
schemes.

Another time he went around sticking Margaret Thatcher heads on the ladies in
girlie mags.

~~~
stfu
Is he still doing any TV shows? I would be so up for that stuff. Just
brilliant!

------
Amadou
Question authority and authority will question you.

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joezydeco
Not that this justifies what happened at all, but:

 _" Bangert, a veteran of the Blockupy protests in Frankfurt, had set up a
group calling itself "NSA spy protection league" (NSA Spion Schutzbund), as if
the US spies were an endangered species of birds"_

Would it be more reasonable to think that this individual was probably already
being monitored as part of his Blockupy, and perhaps the German government was
the one watching him more than the NSA was?

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linohh
German police is monitoring Facebook and has been for years. We once had a
Conference at our University. Someone posted something about a party (back
when everyone was afraid of facebook parties) and 15 minutes later the police
arrived.

They were not allowed to enter the premises, but by coincidence _wink_ _wink_
someone pulled the fire alarm in a then-vacant building 15 minutes later,
which opened the gates and barriers for the cop cruisers waiting just around
the corner. By coincidence of course.

~~~
joezydeco
Wow, that sounds like something American cops would do. That's awful.

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astangl
With all the talk of spying and monitoring citizens' whereabouts via license
plate scans -- can anybody setup a camera to take snapshots of license plates
of cars entering & leaving NSA & other such installations, and cross-reference
these against license records?

~~~
s_q_b
A few years ago at Defcon someone rigged up a Twitter scraper, and found all
the tweets that geolocated to the massive NSA headquarters parking lot. That
said, it's not clear to me that it's legal to actively attempt to "out" NSA
employees.

~~~
paulyg
Regardless of its legality, I'm sure the spooks would find an excuse to come
shake you down.

~~~
brown9-2
I think most of the time you would want some sort of official response to an
attempt to systematically catalog the employees of your nation's clandestine
intelligence agencies.

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ccarter84
Well...at least the German authorities were civilized about it.

Not so sure our authorities (in the US) would have the same reaction.

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rfnslyr
Is that really the point it's gotten to? "At least they didn't kill me for
trying to protect my rights".

~~~
jaggederest
"Jolly good of them to only take a toe"

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timbrooke
Europe is like Marsellus Wallace in Pulp Fiction (where he's bent over). The
US is the thug behind him.

And both seem to be enjoying it.

~~~
cmdkeen
According to released information most of the espionage occurring against
Europe is economic. From the UK wanting to know what German interest rate
policies were back in the 1980s to Airbus to current the current state of EU
finances and what they are planning to do.

Germany is in a fantastic economic situation and has unparalleled soft power
across Europe at the moment. So yes, certain European nations are enjoying it,
and are not in the slightest bent over.

