• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Angela Merkel under pressure to reveal extent of German help for US spying

Maybe it'll spur a vote of confidence election and boot her conservative ass out of there so they can lead Europe's economic resurgence instead of oppressing the rest of Europe with her forced austerity measures.

So the other member countries aren't responsible for their own economic health?
 
The response was that we haven't been explaining why we do things well enough and must do it better.

Got it. But honestly...we really shouldn't bother explaining it unless we get caught.
 
I'm not internationally known but I'm known through out the microphone.

I get stupid I mean outrageous stay away from me...if your contagious.
 
Now I am sure the average citizen would be furious if their government spied on them, allowed and or worked with another government to spy on them. I hope the Germans have enough sense to throw out Merkel and anyone else who colluded with a forign government to spy on them. The only thing that worries me about the OP story is the worry that our government may have aided and or worked with other governments in spying on the American people. This is why you don't elect globalists/internationalists to office.This is why you want nationalists in office.A globalist/internationalist will have no problem selling your country out and aiding forign governments against their own people.

but our government does spy on us, and few are outraged. I haven't seen any demonstrations demanding that the Patriot Act be abolished.
 
Got it. But honestly...we really shouldn't bother explaining it unless we get caught.

I tend to believe it easier to explain why one does things so that they are willing to help.
 
but our government does spy on us, and few are outraged. I haven't seen any demonstrations demanding that the Patriot Act be abolished.

If it is legal and the checks and balances are robust enough, it seems quite okay for data to be mined, I should think.
 
If it is legal and the checks and balances are robust enough, it seems quite okay for data to be mined, I should think.

And, of course, it's legal because the federal government says so.

Except for that little clause in the fourth amendment, but then, who cares about that?
 
but our government does spy on us, and few are outraged. I haven't seen any demonstrations demanding that the Patriot Act be abolished.

it seems perfectly okay, if the data mining is legal and the checks and balances are robust.
 
And, of course, it's legal because the federal government says so.

Except for that little clause in the fourth amendment, but then, who cares about that?

I thought to be legal you needed more than just the say of government. And I am not sure i agree as far as the 4th Amendment goes.
 
but our government does spy on us, and few are outraged. I haven't seen any demonstrations demanding that the Patriot Act be abolished.

that is why I did say I hope the Germans have enough sense to throw out Merkel and anyone else who colluded with a forign government against them. The average American voter on the other has a short attention span when it comes to what our elected officials are doing.
 
So the other member countries aren't responsible for their own economic health?

Not in the EU they're not. The problem with the Euro currency is that each country is bound by it as currency but has no control individually over it as their own currency. Therefore they all rise and fall together. Which has led to the economically dominant country in the Eurozone to wield way too much power over the other countries and dictate to them how to run their country via leaning on them fiscally. It's a really ugly situation they are all in.
 
I thought to be legal you needed more than just the say of government. And I am not sure i agree as far as the 4th Amendment goes.

Yes, to be legal you need more than just the say of government. As for the Fourth Amendment:

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

it was written long before anyone even thought of electronic spying, but the intent is pretty clear it seems to me.
 
The response was that we haven't been explaining why we do things well enough and must do it better.

N.S.A. Collection of Bulk Call Data Is Ruled Illegal
By CHARLIE SAVAGE and JONATHAN WEISMANMAY 7, 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/08/u...tion-ruled-illegal-by-appeals-court.html?_r=0

There is no available satisfactory explanation for this. Cessation is the only appropriate response. What the NSA has been doing using that mostly rag legislation known as the Patriot Act as justification, is precisely the kind of trouble that the Church committee warned us about forty odd years ago.

Tom Daschle, and Patrick Leahy, two men that raised concerns about the Patriot Act, both of which were balking at it, both of which could have prevented it from even coming to a vote, just coincidentally, and handily so for the Bush administration, (wink wink, nod nod) had their offices anthraxed!! Shortly afterward, they climbed aboard the Patriot Act train.
 
Last edited:
I think it would have been a good idea, if successive German governments since Kohl had explained to the German people how things hang together instead of lying to the population in so many existentially important areas. The German people have been being lied to especially in a security context since before Kohl and increasingly during that Chancellor's reign.

In this specific context an American diplomat warned the German government that lying was not a good idea. But Merkel's people did. Now they have allowed the thing to escalate in a very destructive way, though the activities of NSA were totally in accordance with this and earlier governments approval. By not explaining this, the Merkel government has done the relationship with the US a vast disservice. That the Germans are a lose cannon has long been known and this here is just another demonstration of the danger of relying on them.
Various intelligence agencies (not just US, albeit of biggest effort) have been running eaves-dropping operations in Germany since the end of WWII. And in the FRG (then "the West") since its founding a few years later.

The German intelligence BND (originally Organisation Gehlen) was virtually founded, certainly funded, initially by the OSS and to a higher degree by the CIA later. Stipulation was that it report EVERYthing, so sarcasm always reigned in Germany in calling it just a branch of the former.

Cold war tactics of course but anyone with eyes to see would have noticed that the big "golf ball units" didn't get all that dismantled with unification and it doesn't take rocket science to realize that digital TV isn't coming to the German from them since then either.

But if one is not disposed to track back, cannot read, cannot hear and refuses to engage in original thinking, this whole sordid and hypocritical affair is a convenient opportunity to engage in indignant outrage, mostly for furthering of own political gain and by a virtually impotent opposition plus a constantly weakening coalition partner getting on the bus to garner some of the profile lost.

One notices UK's GCHQ being conspicuously left out of the current moral orgasm and this in an age where the European tapping point of trans-Atlantic fibres is as easily to come by as those numerous world wide points of the Five Eyes.

One can argue whether any of this is being done in ways proper or whether it's of any benefit to whoever at all, but any governmental representative of the nations concerned, including the poor "victims", would do everybody a favor in shutting their hypocritical gobs.

In both Germany and the UK intelligence agencies are broadly referred to as Secret Service, some even applying (confusing) the term to the US's version of actually that name. The key here is "secret" and anyone with half a brain knows why they're secret.

To those that don't, because they break the law, specifically of the country(ies) they operate in abroad and that's their job. Germany, thru its BND, does it as well.

All in the interest of their countries and screw you Jack, your laws are no concern of ours.

Without the US Germany wouldn't even have had an intelligence agency, riddled with old Nazis as it initially was and leaky as a tub as it also was by being equally riddled with Stasi moles.

But you're right, comes a time when the policy of the three apes no longer works and it's better to speak openly BEFORE the younger public finds out what the OLDER has always known or should have.
 
.............I hope the Germans have enough sense to throw out Merkel and anyone else who colluded with a forign government to spy on them. ............
Unfounded. As has been pointed out, Angela is a gem. Truly!! In that she's the only politician that I currently know (which doesn't say much) that has managed to convince people that being devoid of vision, devoid of inspiration, thus having no plan for anything whatsoever and subsequently preferring to do nothing until the feces are really into the ventilation system, is the height of political action.

They simply love her and see everything she doesn't do as right. The government has lousy ratings, hers are peaking.

A gem indeed (keerist).
The only thing that worries me about the OP story is the worry that our government may have aided and or worked with other governments in spying on the American people.
No need to worry, replace worry with certainty. The Brits that have tapped transatlantic fibre at Bude (Cornwall) are probably collecting more data than even the NSA but NSA collects a lot at Tuckerton (N.J.) where TAT-14 and its "colleagues" come ashore. And as long as the Brits pass only data of US citizens to the NSA and NSA only that of Brits to GCHQ and both of everybody else, nobody's really spied on their own citizens.

That's just the Atlantic and just two of the Five Eyes.
This is why you don't elect globalists/internationalists to office.This is why you want nationalists in office.A globalist/internationalist will have no problem selling your country out and aiding forign governments against their own people.
Makes no difference really. A nationalist that can get aid to use against his/her own, will trade likewise.

It's so much easier and far less messy than having to engage in such sordid little endeavors as sending a bunch of amateurs to invade a hotel complex in order to find out what strategy the opposition has.

Get real. ;)
 
that is why I did say I hope the Germans have enough sense to throw out Merkel and anyone else who colluded with a forign government against them. The average American voter on the other has a short attention span when it comes to what our elected officials are doing.
Hehe, you reckon the average German voter is any different? When there's bread on the table, a car in the garage, the average pay sufficient to make the mortgage affordable, who cares about this crap?

They'll vote the mugshots that made all this comfort possible or at least didn't screw it up for them.

More in common than that what divides.
 
Last edited:
Yes, to be legal you need more than just the say of government. As for the Fourth Amendment:



it was written long before anyone even thought of electronic spying, but the intent is pretty clear it seems to me.

Yes. I had reread the Amendment before writing. I am not at all as sure as you seem to be that that forbids most of what NSA has been doing. In particular it would not seem to forbid the collection and use of meta data and possibly not even of the content of email. It certainly does not apply to international data mining and content scanning.
 
N.S.A. Collection of Bulk Call Data Is Ruled Illegal
By CHARLIE SAVAGE and JONATHAN WEISMANMAY 7, 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/08/u...tion-ruled-illegal-by-appeals-court.html?_r=0

There is no available satisfactory explanation for this. Cessation is the only appropriate response. What the NSA has been doing using that mostly rag legislation known as the Patriot Act as justification, is precisely the kind of trouble that the Church committee warned us about forty odd years ago.

Tom Daschle, and Patrick Leahy, two men that raised concerns about the Patriot Act, both of which were balking at it, both of which could have prevented it from even coming to a vote, just coincidentally, and handily so for the Bush administration, (wink wink, nod nod) had their offices anthraxed!! Shortly afterward, they climbed aboard the Patriot Act train.

Thank you for a very timely article. Probably i will have to look at the ruling, but it looks as if the court is asking the legislative to formalize what it wants better. That is always a good idea. What it does not seem to do is say that it is legally impossible to do data mining, if correctly structured.
What is clear is that it is work in progress.
 
That's just the Atlantic and just two of the Five Eyes. Makes no difference really. A nationalist that can get aid to use against his/her own, will trade likewise.

It's so much easier and far less messy than having to engage in such sordid little endeavors as sending a bunch of amateurs to invade a hotel complex in order to find out what strategy the opposition has.

Get real. ;)
I doubt it. Nationalists care about their nation's sovereignty and therefore a nationalist in charge would not let a forign government agency spy on the people that nationalist represents. Globalists/internationalists on the other hand don't give two ****s about their country's sovereignty and will quickly sell their citizens down the river for a quick buck.
 
Not in the EU they're not. The problem with the Euro currency is that each country is bound by it as currency but has no control individually over it as their own currency. Therefore they all rise and fall together. Which has led to the economically dominant country in the Eurozone to wield way too much power over the other countries and dictate to them how to run their country via leaning on them fiscally. It's a really ugly situation they are all in.

If they all rise and fall together, how can there be an economically dominant country? It seems to me the economics and politics of the other countries are to blame for their own struggles, as opposed to a country like Germany, who apparently doesn't suffer from the same economic mistakes.
 
Yes. I had reread the Amendment before writing. I am not at all as sure as you seem to be that that forbids most of what NSA has been doing. In particular it would not seem to forbid the collection and use of meta data and possibly not even of the content of email. It certainly does not apply to international data mining and content scanning.

It doesn't apply to spying on foreign nations, but to spying on our own citizens. The Fourth mentions security in their "persons, houses, papers, and effects," which would have been a pretty comprehensive list back before the electronic age.
 
It doesn't apply to spying on foreign nations, but to spying on our own citizens. The Fourth mentions security in their "persons, houses, papers, and effects," which would have been a pretty comprehensive list back before the electronic age.

Yes it would. But using the internet is like using a postcard or the streets. You send a pedophile picture, you get clobbered. You mug a guy and are on video, you get prosecuted. What you do in public is for all to see. So don't pee on the Memorial.
 
Yes it would. But using the internet is like using a postcard or the streets. You send a pedophile picture, you get clobbered. You mug a guy and are on video, you get prosecuted. What you do in public is for all to see. So don't pee on the Memorial.

Yes, I suppose that's true. There isn't a lot of privacy on the web. But what about private emails? What about telephone calls? Isn't there some expectation of privacy there?
 
Yes, I suppose that's true. There isn't a lot of privacy on the web. But what about private emails? What about telephone calls? Isn't there some expectation of privacy there?

You could argue "private" emails both ways I would assume. But the internet is never really private and we all know it. We could pretend it were, but that would be worse than admitting the truth, because some would act as though it was and shipwreck.
 
Yes. I had reread the Amendment before writing. I am not at all as sure as you seem to be that that forbids most of what NSA has been doing. In particular it would not seem to forbid the collection and use of meta data and possibly not even of the content of email. It certainly does not apply to international data mining and content scanning.

Regarding data from US citizens, what do you suppose that "no warrant shall issue but upon probable cause" mean to you?
 
Back
Top Bottom