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  • well, here's an article that may rile up some of the WAB German population...

    Why We Need to Spy on the Germans - The Daily Beast
    There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

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    • Sorta like:

      US committed 'grave political error' with spying | Germany | DW.DE | 11.07.2014
      Expulsion of top spy a 'wake-up call' for US | World | DW.DE | 11.07.2014
      Germany and the US: Friends or mere allies? | Germany | DW.DE | 09.07.2014

      Opinion: The spies who didn't love us | Germany | DW.DE | 10.07.2014
      Opinion: Wake up, Washington | World | DW.DE | 11.07.2014
      Opinion: A slap in the face for transatlantic ties | World | DW.DE | 07.07.2014

      And of course this might wake up some people:

      US spying weighs on TTIP trade talks | All media content | DW.DE | 11.07.2014

      :whome:


      Btw:
      Last month, the German government canceled a contract with Verizon over allegations that it had provided call records to the NSA.
      This bit in the Daily Beast article is a bit ridiculous. It's not a short-term cancelling. MCI Communications, a Verizon sub, provided parts of IVBV (administrative network*) for the German parliament. Since 2010, the administration has been restructuring its networks into a single-provider system that allows certain emergency measures and regulatory procedures**. MCI Communications was told in 2010 that the government would sequentially retire use of selected features from the IVBV contract.
      In June MCI communications was told that the contract would be cancelled due to remaining features (which would be internet connection for a couple offices) presenting a security risk. This definite cancellation came a few days after Verizon's NSA connections were publicly revealed, despite Verizon Germany's claims that it used separate data centers physically located in Germany that the NSA supposedly didn't have contractual legal access rights to (like they do for Verizon USA according to Snowden).

      * - IVBV is a lower-tier secure network for non-sensitive data for general government administration. Ministries, security agencies and such use the upper-tier security IVBB network instead, provided by Deutsche Telekom.
      **- Which - at least implicitly - would likely include switching the network over to separate, secure infrastructure such as the Bundeswehr's recently completed fibre network if required.

      According to former NSA intelligence and computer systems analyst Ira Winkler, the BND has penetrated the SWIFT financial messaging network, passing on the information to German businesses. In his book Spies Among Us, he writes of “the apparent willingness of German businesses to funnel sensitive information and technology to nations that are hostile to the United States,” including Iran.
      "Spies Among Us" was written ten years ago. Let's not comment on its factualness, or its "yo, you gotta buy my company's security services" adage. ;)

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      • The connection between the two cases in Germany has now been revealed:

        The files passed on by the CIA agent included a formal request-for-information on the other guy posited in May 2014 to the BND (foreign intelligence) by the BfV (counterintelligence) for suspicion of spying for the Russians, which was denied. The CIA agent was the one to handle this RFI within the BND. He then decided to join the Russians themselves, sending them an "application" that included as proof-of-work this particular file amongst others.
        The NSA is connected to the case insofar as the BfV requested assistance from the "allied" intelligence service, which resulted in the CIA agent being warned and beginning steps to obfuscate involvement. The above file then became the incriminating evidence when the BfV started narrowing down suspects themselves without relying on the NSA.

        The second guy's thing is quite complicated, and more "classic high-level spy story". Apparently the guy is a reserve officer who previously worked in the staff of COM KFOR and was involved with building up the domestic intelligence service of Kosovo as part of this. According to investigations by German media he regularly - twice per year - went on short trips to Turkey where he met a DIA representative who he had first met during that KFOR deployment, and who the US government currently claims is just a lowly public servant in the Foreign Office. German counterespionage first got tipped off about these trips in August 2010, and investigated him initially suspecting that he was meeting Russian intelligence officials. The guy, after the deployment, switched posts at a low to mid level in the MoD quite often, which apparently gave him a low priority for counterespionage. He held his most recent posting as a consultant in the Pol.I.1 department of the MoD ("Foundations of Security Politics and Bilateral Relationships") since mid-2013 though, which reraised priority and resulted in a variety of checks being carried out under the mantle of the process of giving him a particular clearance. The above RFI was part of this.
        The guy is currently under suspicion of "intelligence activity", which is a catch-all paragraph that does not necessitate information passed on to be classified or relevant in any way, but punishes any and all activity for foreign intelligence agencies not covered by the "BND law" (which allows the BND - and only them - to share information with allied intelligence agencies under thematically grouped dispensations from the head of intelligence in the chancellery). Possible sentence is five years for less serious cases.

        Comment


        • Originally posted by astralis View Post
          well, here's an article that may rile up some of the WAB German population...

          Why We Need to Spy on the Germans - The Daily Beast


          Attached Files

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          • You dont think our little island had a hand in any of this do you snapper ! ,gadzooks forsooth , skulduggery and underhanded doings and dealings are afoot methinks :whome:
            Last edited by tankie; 13 Jul 14,, 10:00.

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            • I believe Mr Schroeder's Gazprom Birthday in St Petersburg in April, from which the photo's come, was covered by some German media. Others that attended was Frau Merkel's foreign policy 'expert' Philipp Missfelder, who later faced calls for his resignation I believe (though naturally he didn't). But in truth it goes way back... SPAG involved Putin himself being on the Board.

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              • Originally posted by snapper View Post
                I believe Mr Schroeder's Gazprom Birthday in St Petersburg in April, from which the photo's come, was covered by some German media. Others that attended was Frau Merkel's foreign policy 'expert' Philipp Missfelder, who later faced calls for his resignation I believe (though naturally he didn't). But in truth it goes way back... SPAG involved Putin himself being on the Board.
                Did BP organise the party :whome:

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                • Originally posted by snapper View Post
                  Others that attended was Frau Merkel's foreign policy 'expert' Philipp Missfelder, who later faced calls for his resignation I believe (though naturally he didn't)
                  Mißfelder resigned from his only real post (as Merkel's "Transatlantic Coordinator") four weeks before that party. The only calls for further "resignation" (from his post as party foreign policy whip) came from Volker Kauder, the party head who effectively doesn't have any real role left himself.

                  What was criticized more in the overall affair early on btw, from multiple sides, was Mißfelder's indirect connection to Vladimir Yakunin, who is considered a rightwing-extremist cancer at Putin's side in Germany.

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                  • Originally posted by tankie View Post
                    Did BP organise the party :whome:
                    BP were and are again (Rosneft Signs $1.5 Billion Oil Deal With BP - WSJ) partners with Rossneft.

                    So Herr Mißfelder was never a 'foreign policy spokesman' before or after the Gazprom do? In that case why did he attend the party in St. Petersburg, Uncle Vova's home town, which proved so profitable to him and others in the 1992 'Second Siege of Leningrad'? How strange...

                    How strange too that one of your current 'CIA' suspects was actually working for the SVR. Timing is coincidental I am sure.
                    Last edited by snapper; 13 Jul 14,, 15:00.

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                    • Federal government has started a search for NSA electronic surveillance systems throughout the government infrastructure. This is also due to several cell phones of PKG* and NSA-UA** members being interfered with by suspected NSA cyber attacks, for which the federal prosecutor has an open case gathering data since August 2013. This includes the cell phone of the CDU faction head for NSA-UA.

                      Some of the heavyweights in the German media landscape - Springer in particular - have started tapping US sources to investigate further CIA activity, currently claiming that "more than a dozen" people within the German government administrative structure are on CIA payrolls, located in the Interior, Economics, Defense and Development Aid Ministries (the latter since it is used as cover for BND activity in target countries).

                      Federal Constitutional Protection Service started open HUMINT surveillance of "selected US embassy staff" in Berlin early last week.

                      * Parliamentary Control Committee, oversight group for German intelligence services.
                      ** Parliamentary Committee investigating the NSA.

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                      • Steinmeier and Kerry met in Vienna on Sunday evening, during the talks on Iranian nuclear disarmament. Steinmeier cut the visit short due to "having to" watch the World Cup final from Berlin. End result of the meeting was that Steinmeier called "transatlantic cooperation being necessary to resolve conflicts in the Middle East" and "reviving our relationship on a basis of mutual respect and trust" while Kerry talked about a "strategic partnership with Germany" and "enormous political cooperation". There's a marked difference in those words in case you don't catch that.
                        Kerry also had to attend talks with the Austrian foreign minister, who wanted to talk about the CIA office in Vienna supposedly running that whole operation with the spy in the BND. That one went a bit less public.

                        And the head of the NSA investigations committee is talking about copying the Russians and moving on to typewriters for classified protocols to thwart NSA surveillance.
                        Last edited by kato; 15 Jul 14,, 06:39.

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                        • Which surveillance isn't required due to some dubious relations with the Russians...
                          Those who know don't speak
                          He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. Luke 22:36

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                          • Dubious relations... You mean Putin seizing Rousseff's seat when she was away during the break and talking to Merkel by themselves during the second half of the final? :whome:

                            CIA Berlin CoS didn't initially react to the send-off btw (read: the Obama gov still thinks this whole thing is a joke), so the foreign ministry informally upped the pressure a bit without having to pull off the gloves.

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                            • I'm having some problems here. I sense our German friends are seeking reasons to justify shifting their bent decidedly eastward.

                              So the NSA scoops data like a vacuum cleaner? Is anybody really surprised? I'm not. How long have we been hearing about our phone calls here in the states monitored by the NSA?

                              Now the Germans are upset that we've conducted espionage ops on their soil? So am I. We got turned out. I get it. Bad form and much egg all around.

                              Am I, however, to presume that Germans are actually upset we'd possess the audacity to even attempt collection activities on allies, earnest or otherwise? Should I therefore presume neither FSB nor BND develop contacts wherever possible within the extensive U.S. community in Germany?

                              Or possessing the means to tap our POTUS or PUTIN they'd choose otherwise?

                              Not happening. That's why they're called spies. Hopefully talented too.

                              If you ain't spyin', you're lyin' or dyin'.
                              "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
                              "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

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                              • The German position is that "you don't do that kind of thing with Allies" in the 21st century. The NSA's operations in Germany, Europe and worldwide have been successfully downplayed by Merkel and her cronies to keep opinions about the USA from sinking to the Earth core over it, the current primarily CIA affair is extremely hard to suppress similarly though.

                                The BND explicitly does not have a "reconnaissance mission" towards the United States (this has been announced to be under discussion now), the BfV's counterintelligence mission is entirely geared towards China, Russia, Iran and North Korea (this will be expanded to include the USA). The primary set of "reconnaissance missions" for the BND concentrates on the Middle East and Balkans. Contacts among expats are formed primarily in the German refugee processing camps, in case you're wondering. The secondary mission set for the BND - the part we don't like - is assisting the NSA in spying on us. And spying on us without NSA help too, of course.

                                What bent eastward btw? As mentioned in the Ukraine thread, you won't get a more US-friendly German chancellor than Merkel. She's bending over backwards to form the Atlantic Bridge, so to say.

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