Thursday, 7 May 2015, BERLIN - German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been charged with "treason" by at least one politician heading the German Left party after Der Speigel reported recently that since at least 2008 a "rogue" division of the B.N.D. German foreign intelligence service working for the N.S.A. has engaged in spying including on friendly German and European "interests" believed to include individuals and businesses perhaps most notably the French-German enterprise European Aeronautic Defense and Space, now known as the Airbus Group about which the B.N.D. "failed to fully inform the Chancellery or Parliament" but apparently did inform Ms. Merkel's government to the extent German Chancellor Merkel "failed in her constitutional duty to supervise the intelligence services and inform Parliament of the services' activities".
Although not raised as an issue as with United States executive branch "intelligence" services which often on their face lack legal jurisdiction over and authority to engage in any domestic spying and related unconstitutional activities given that the B.N.D. is identified as a "foreign" intelligence service it would appear to have overstepped its ostensible authority by committing domestic spying on German "individuals and businesses" at home. Germans moreover are particularly sensitive to "intelligence" service domestic surveillance given "their memory of the Nazi and Communist regimes that spied on their citizens" (as the New York Times puts it rather blithely omitting Germans' doubtless intense memory also of what outrages, horrors and atrocities those regimes inflicted upon German citizens as a result of their spying on the German people).
Moreover unlike in the United States where the N.S.A. is warmly embraced by all (at least by all at the N.S.A. and apparently in France) for its indiscriminate domestic and foreign mass surveillance, sweeping metadata collection activities (based on which metadata alone former N.S.A. Director Hayden stated "we kill people") and other N.S.A. other revealed and doubtless unrevealed myriad other unconstitutional abuses nevertheless overseas in Germany "anti-N.S.A. sentiment remains high" including German "revulsion" with the N.S.A. in the wake particularly of the revelations of Edward J. Snowden (a "popular hero" in Germany) of the scope of the N.S.A.'s criminal indiscriminate domestic and foreign surveillance.
German Chancellor Merkel herself when running for re-election which she won for a third term in 2013 loudly cast herself as "the wronged American ally whose cellphone number was among data sucked up by American intelligence as it kept watch on Europeans" proclaiming that "[s]pying among friends -- that is simply not done". In fact such spying among friends "simply was done" right at that time by her own government B.N.D. intelligence service moreover under the control of the N.S.A. apparently since at least 2008. In any case Ms. Merkel managed to capitalize on her own cellphone privacy invasion exploiting German "outrage" over Snowden revelations but managed to "tamp down" what has become known among Germans as the growing "N.S.A. scandal". The truth of the recent allegations would tend to suggest that Chancellor Merkel is a dishonest hypocrite
Even as opposition Left party leader Gregor Gysi called Chancellor Merkel's actions "treason" that accusation on Monday unsurprisingly was "angrily rebutted" by B.N.D. spy agency chief Gerhard Schindler (compare former Ninth Amendment post with photo of N.S.A. chief Admiral Michael "Mike" Rogers also "angrily rebutting" an unwelcome suggestion) dismissing with the Cheneyesque response that it was "absolutely absurd" to suggest his agency was "a compliant tool" of the N.S.A. However Schindler apparently still is experiencing technological communication challenges with Chancellor Merkel who on the same day reportedly at the same time stated that in order to best "protect the lives and bodies of 80 million Germans" cooperation with the National Security Agency came "first and foremost".
Previous to last Monday after the 23 April 2015 Der Speigel reports government spokesman Steffen Seibert attributed the reportedly at least seven year lapse in Chancellor Merkel's government oversight and Chancellery and Parliamentary reporting of the actions of the rogue G.N.D. spy division working for the N.S.A. to "'[t]echnological and organizational deficiencies at the B.N.D." which seemingly in response to the recent Der Speigel reports now had been quickly identified as Mr. Seibert gave assurance the Merkel government had issued "immediate orders that they be rectified". Based on B.N.D. chief Schindler's and Chancellor Merkel's contemporaneous statements arguably implying significantly inconsistent degrees of the scope of the N.S.A. role in controlling German intelligence it would appear the B.N.D. had not as of Monday yet rectified at least technological deficiencies as to communication with the Chancellery in response to its "immediate orders".
In any case the standing parliamentary committee with oversight responsibility for all German intelligence services as well as a special parliamentary inquiry specifically into the N.S.A. have been conducting ongoing investigations into the details of the matter and questioning "key officials" including former U.S. intelligence officials which unsurprisingly is revealing a "damning picture of American surveillance practices". Although the specifics of German intelligence collusion with the N.S.A. remain "murky" given the innate unreliability of intelligence officials in providing comprehensible information to the public the German federal prosecutor is considering launching a formal investigation.
The the substance of the recent allegations of N.S.A. control over the B.N.D. is consistent with a complaint filed by Austria on Tuesday against German and American intelligence agencies grounded on suspicions that the agencies have been spying on Austria according to Reuters. Moreover also last week the French-German enterprise Airbus Group filed a legal complaint leveling charges against "unnamed persons" of economic espionage including requests for more information from the German government. A related "indication that espionage might have occurred" is that "[m]embers of the German Parliament have suggested that Washington may influence how much the German government can reveal to Airbus" the New York Times reports.
The Ninth Amendment editorial board would suggest that put more bluntly this is to say that the German government cannot disclose B.N.D. intelligence information regarding even economic and/or industrial espionage conducted who knows for what reason concerning an offended German party even of a joint venture German company unless it has permission from its N.S.A. handlers. It is hard to imagine how the B.N.D. could become more of a "complaint tool" of the N.S.A. than that. Furthermore the Airbus complaint highlights the issue of the N.S.A.-B.N.D. reportedly not only spying on individuals but on businesses including very large ones which raises the question of when and why the N.S.A. has "diversified" into business including major industrial espionage in friendly countries and if so given the technology has the N.S.A. been corrupted to the point that it has determined that legal interpretations of its authority can always be contorted to conform to an N.S.A. perception that given the cash its mission and mandate to "suck up" information is infinite?
Finally as to this matter it appears significant that Germany's No. 2 in power after Chancellor Merkel who is German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel and the leader of the center-left Social Democrats disclosed to reporters that Merkel told him there was "nothing" to the allegations and furthermore said that he believed Merkel. However he reportedly followed this immediately by a statement that "what we are witnessing now is an affair, a secret service scandal, which could set off a very grave tremor." A rather ominous sounding warning compared to what preceded it especially coming from the German Vice-Chancellor, Germans particularly high officials generally not being known for lightly tossing off references to such events as "grave tremors".
Those readers interested in more information concerning the above can go to link to the above-referenced New York Times article below. [UPDATE] Readers interested in further more recently developed information related to the above also can go to the second link added below.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/06/world/europe/scandal-over-spying-shakes-german-government.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Updated link: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/22/world/europe/intelligence-spying-germany-us.html
Copyright 2015 Martin P. All World Rights Expressly Reserved
Although not raised as an issue as with United States executive branch "intelligence" services which often on their face lack legal jurisdiction over and authority to engage in any domestic spying and related unconstitutional activities given that the B.N.D. is identified as a "foreign" intelligence service it would appear to have overstepped its ostensible authority by committing domestic spying on German "individuals and businesses" at home. Germans moreover are particularly sensitive to "intelligence" service domestic surveillance given "their memory of the Nazi and Communist regimes that spied on their citizens" (as the New York Times puts it rather blithely omitting Germans' doubtless intense memory also of what outrages, horrors and atrocities those regimes inflicted upon German citizens as a result of their spying on the German people).
Moreover unlike in the United States where the N.S.A. is warmly embraced by all (at least by all at the N.S.A. and apparently in France) for its indiscriminate domestic and foreign mass surveillance, sweeping metadata collection activities (based on which metadata alone former N.S.A. Director Hayden stated "we kill people") and other N.S.A. other revealed and doubtless unrevealed myriad other unconstitutional abuses nevertheless overseas in Germany "anti-N.S.A. sentiment remains high" including German "revulsion" with the N.S.A. in the wake particularly of the revelations of Edward J. Snowden (a "popular hero" in Germany) of the scope of the N.S.A.'s criminal indiscriminate domestic and foreign surveillance.
German Chancellor Merkel herself when running for re-election which she won for a third term in 2013 loudly cast herself as "the wronged American ally whose cellphone number was among data sucked up by American intelligence as it kept watch on Europeans" proclaiming that "[s]pying among friends -- that is simply not done". In fact such spying among friends "simply was done" right at that time by her own government B.N.D. intelligence service moreover under the control of the N.S.A. apparently since at least 2008. In any case Ms. Merkel managed to capitalize on her own cellphone privacy invasion exploiting German "outrage" over Snowden revelations but managed to "tamp down" what has become known among Germans as the growing "N.S.A. scandal". The truth of the recent allegations would tend to suggest that Chancellor Merkel is a dishonest hypocrite
Even as opposition Left party leader Gregor Gysi called Chancellor Merkel's actions "treason" that accusation on Monday unsurprisingly was "angrily rebutted" by B.N.D. spy agency chief Gerhard Schindler (compare former Ninth Amendment post with photo of N.S.A. chief Admiral Michael "Mike" Rogers also "angrily rebutting" an unwelcome suggestion) dismissing with the Cheneyesque response that it was "absolutely absurd" to suggest his agency was "a compliant tool" of the N.S.A. However Schindler apparently still is experiencing technological communication challenges with Chancellor Merkel who on the same day reportedly at the same time stated that in order to best "protect the lives and bodies of 80 million Germans" cooperation with the National Security Agency came "first and foremost".
Previous to last Monday after the 23 April 2015 Der Speigel reports government spokesman Steffen Seibert attributed the reportedly at least seven year lapse in Chancellor Merkel's government oversight and Chancellery and Parliamentary reporting of the actions of the rogue G.N.D. spy division working for the N.S.A. to "'[t]echnological and organizational deficiencies at the B.N.D." which seemingly in response to the recent Der Speigel reports now had been quickly identified as Mr. Seibert gave assurance the Merkel government had issued "immediate orders that they be rectified". Based on B.N.D. chief Schindler's and Chancellor Merkel's contemporaneous statements arguably implying significantly inconsistent degrees of the scope of the N.S.A. role in controlling German intelligence it would appear the B.N.D. had not as of Monday yet rectified at least technological deficiencies as to communication with the Chancellery in response to its "immediate orders".
In any case the standing parliamentary committee with oversight responsibility for all German intelligence services as well as a special parliamentary inquiry specifically into the N.S.A. have been conducting ongoing investigations into the details of the matter and questioning "key officials" including former U.S. intelligence officials which unsurprisingly is revealing a "damning picture of American surveillance practices". Although the specifics of German intelligence collusion with the N.S.A. remain "murky" given the innate unreliability of intelligence officials in providing comprehensible information to the public the German federal prosecutor is considering launching a formal investigation.
The the substance of the recent allegations of N.S.A. control over the B.N.D. is consistent with a complaint filed by Austria on Tuesday against German and American intelligence agencies grounded on suspicions that the agencies have been spying on Austria according to Reuters. Moreover also last week the French-German enterprise Airbus Group filed a legal complaint leveling charges against "unnamed persons" of economic espionage including requests for more information from the German government. A related "indication that espionage might have occurred" is that "[m]embers of the German Parliament have suggested that Washington may influence how much the German government can reveal to Airbus" the New York Times reports.
The Ninth Amendment editorial board would suggest that put more bluntly this is to say that the German government cannot disclose B.N.D. intelligence information regarding even economic and/or industrial espionage conducted who knows for what reason concerning an offended German party even of a joint venture German company unless it has permission from its N.S.A. handlers. It is hard to imagine how the B.N.D. could become more of a "complaint tool" of the N.S.A. than that. Furthermore the Airbus complaint highlights the issue of the N.S.A.-B.N.D. reportedly not only spying on individuals but on businesses including very large ones which raises the question of when and why the N.S.A. has "diversified" into business including major industrial espionage in friendly countries and if so given the technology has the N.S.A. been corrupted to the point that it has determined that legal interpretations of its authority can always be contorted to conform to an N.S.A. perception that given the cash its mission and mandate to "suck up" information is infinite?
Finally as to this matter it appears significant that Germany's No. 2 in power after Chancellor Merkel who is German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel and the leader of the center-left Social Democrats disclosed to reporters that Merkel told him there was "nothing" to the allegations and furthermore said that he believed Merkel. However he reportedly followed this immediately by a statement that "what we are witnessing now is an affair, a secret service scandal, which could set off a very grave tremor." A rather ominous sounding warning compared to what preceded it especially coming from the German Vice-Chancellor, Germans particularly high officials generally not being known for lightly tossing off references to such events as "grave tremors".
Those readers interested in more information concerning the above can go to link to the above-referenced New York Times article below. [UPDATE] Readers interested in further more recently developed information related to the above also can go to the second link added below.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/06/world/europe/scandal-over-spying-shakes-german-government.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Updated link: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/22/world/europe/intelligence-spying-germany-us.html
Copyright 2015 Martin P. All World Rights Expressly Reserved
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