Latest Snowden Doc Shows NSA Spied on German Intelligence

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/new-snowden-document-reveals-us-spied-on-german-intelligence-a-1055055.html

by jdimov9 • 11 years ago

155 152 11 years ago

spiegel.de

NullCharacter5• 11 years ago

A signals intelligence agency conducting intelligence operations on foreign signals?

Stop the presses!

pachydermic• 11 years ago

Spying on other spying agencies seems like 100% fair game even if they are our allies. I don't think the NSA should be collecting massive amounts of data on ordinary citizens in a way which violates our constitutional rights, or that they should collaborate with other intelligence agencies to effectively do the same thing, but I think they should still exist and they have a real reason to exist.

Not enthused about this leak.

NullCharacter5• 11 years ago

So is Snowden still a whistleblower? Honest question, not trying to be snide.

If you abscond with 1,000 legitimate mission-oriented documents for every 1 document you leak that pertains to something you think an agency shouldn't be doing, are you still blowing the whistle? At what point are you no longer able to use that title as a defense? 10,000 documents for every 1? 100,000? Can he be both a whistleblower and a criminal or are the two mutually exclusive?

I don't have answers to these questions so I hope someone else does.

Try not to downvote for simply disagreeing with the question, as though it were even possible to disagree with a question.

wwwwwwwwww• 11 years ago

Snowden stopped being a whistleblower to me when the docs about the CIA's sigint spying gear was published.

There's a lot of docs that are useful for laypeople to improve their privacy, and then there's the ones that are going to do nothing but damage the spying capability of US intelligence agencies against nation-state adversaries.

If his sole goal was to damage the spying capability of US intelligence agencies, then he was a mole, not a whistle blower.

clarkmoody• 11 years ago

Isn't every whistleblower within the intelligence community a criminal by definition due to the laws surrounding the material? (Assuming they are blowing the whistle about non human-resources issues)

pvnick2• 11 years ago

Snowden didn't decide which document's to publish - journalists did. He handed over a trove of information, among which was damning evidence that our government was/is doing something they shouldn't, and gave journalists the responsibility to publish relevant documents appropriately. I for one believe that the releases have been done with impeccable professionalism, and in fact if it were up to me I would have been even more liberal with the releases (Greenwald, Poitras, et al. have actually worked with the government during this process).

nabla9• 11 years ago

As a citizen of EU country I'm grateful. If Snowden is committing crime, it's political crime.

There are more important concerns and loyalties than those we have for individual countries. If he is revealing how US spies friendly nations, he is serving greater good. His document leak to journalists seem to avoid information of NSA spying Russia or China.

mtgx• 11 years ago

Of course he is. His documents have already provided huge benefit to the public. Are we really going to nitpick over every single document from the hundreds of thousands and go "Aha! this document probably shouldn't have been leaked - he's totally a traitor now"?

I'm sure there were documents in the Pentagon Papers which probably shouldn't have been made public, too. Looking back, was that relevant to the larger cause of informing the public about the Vietnam war's lies?

ewindisch3• 11 years ago

As a thought experiment, are we certain these documents came from Snowden? He has not digitally signed these releases. He himself may not know entirely what was in the archive, so he may not be certain if all the released documents originated from his dump. Even if he was aware of documents being incorrectly attributed to him, it may do his cause more harm than good to highlight this fact.

It would be a legitimate option for the NSA to intentionally "leak" documents that simply describe their mission, causing a false spectacle. It will not hurt them much, given it's well within their mission parameters, but CAN hurt Snowden through public backlash. It would raise such questions as, "is Snowden still a whistleblower?" Such releases could hurt his credibility, or even flood the news with insignificant stories such that the truly important ones are lost in the shuffle.

I am not certain this is what we're seeing, but neither would I be surprised if it were true.

EDIT: There have been documents leaked about how the CIA and IC use character assassination to advance their causes. There have also been articles explicitly about the character assassination of Snowden: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/06/12522/glenn-greenwald-sp... http://www.securitycurrent.com/en/writers/richard-stiennon/t...

tptacek2• 11 years ago

That's not a question with a binary answer. Some of what he's published clearly is "whistleblowing", and a lot of it clearly isn't.

The notion of whether Snowden as a person is a whistleblower is a partisan rhetorical trick --- employed by both "sides" of the debate --- used to distract people from his actual actions.

rasz_pl• 11 years ago

Try not to downvote for simply disagreeing with the question

You are asking the question same way Fox News asks if we should just nuke middle east. It not a question, its your opinion, as valid and proper as rape jokes(another Fox News special).

pdkl956• 11 years ago

If you are concerned about the release of some of these documents, why aren't you focusing your attention on the crimes in government and the failure of oversight that made public disclosure necessary. Would you prefer Snowden had stayed silent and the crimes he revealed remained unknown?

Everybody makes mistakes, and it is reasonable to assume that someone trying to bring documents out of a state agency so the people can see them isn't going to have the luxury of time. This attitude that a whistleblower is somehow supposed to be perfect is suspicious; attempting to seed the meme that Snowden was anything other than a whistleblower, while diverting attention yet again from the crimes of a rogue intelligence agency.

mattkrea2• 11 years ago

My bigger takeaway here is that they are supposed to be working with them. I'm quite sure that German intelligence would have offered up this information if some NSA official just asked.

Instead of coordinating with the people that they share so much other more sensitive info with they stole it. That is where I see a problem.

andylei• 11 years ago

I'm quite sure that German intelligence would have offered up this information if some NSA official just asked

probably not

tormeh• 11 years ago

My bigger takeaway here is that they are supposed to be working with them. I'm quite sure that German intelligence would have offered up this information if some NSA official just asked.

How would the NSA know the Germans didn't lie? I don't think this is a big issue. If you're a spy, expect to be spied upon.

sonoffett4• 11 years ago

I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!

But seriously, is this not what the NSA is paid to do?

braythwayt2• 11 years ago

The "I'm shocked, shocked" meme from Casablanca is most appropriate when the speaker is themselves hypocritically complicit in the wrongdoing being described.

So... I think it's up to the German Minister of Security to say they are shocked, shocked that the USA is spying on the people Germany uses to spy on the US.

matthewmcg• 11 years ago

So maybe a more apt classic movie paraphrase would be "Hey! There's no eavesdropping in here--this is a SIGINT room!"

masteryupa_2• 11 years ago

All information might as well be completely free and open to the public for the security the practice of counter spying provides us. Additionally, the reason this level of infringement of privacy is so damning is that it completely absolves any notion of trust the German authority might have had towards the US. Attempts to form a more cohesive alliance in international politics will not be fruitful with this strategy.

happyscrappy3• 11 years ago

What is Germany supposed to do, align with Russia? They really don't have any choice.

masteryupa_2• 11 years ago

Probably not but I don't see any reason why this kind of information needs to be sourced through spying rather than through a formal declaration between intelligence services. Not that that process need be transparent, just that the act of willing participation by the German administration would likely produce a more amicable friendship.

unreal37• 11 years ago

Seems like a non-story. The NSA was in possession of a couple of documents created by German intelligence. There's no evidence how they got them. Perhaps there was a leaker inside of the German intelligence service who posted a copy of these memos to a pastebin? They have no idea how the Americans got it.

vinceguidry2• 11 years ago

Isn't that their job?

kaonashi• 11 years ago

Look where this is published.

vinceguidry2• 11 years ago

Ahh, missed that. Thanks.

ihsw• 11 years ago

Since they've tapped pretty much everything then isn't it physically impossible that they cannot spy on everybody?

bobowzki• 11 years ago

I'm not a big fan of the NSA, but isn't that kind of their job..?

rdl• 11 years ago

I'd be pretty angry at NSA for being incompetent if they didn't spy on foreign intelligence agencies. FFS, that, and spying on heads of government/military, is their ultimate purpose.

Counterterrorism and such, which has the slippery slope to spying on private citizens, is completely secondary at best.

ccalvert• 11 years ago

This is legitimate activity for the NSA, but it plays badly in Europe. My guess is that Snowden and his friends are pandering to folks in Europe who naturally dislike this kind of thing, and particularly to folks in Germany.

Imagine the reaction on the far right here in America to a news report that Russia, Germany or France spies on American intelligence agencies. It's natural that such things should happen, but its also certain to create discord among certain factions here in America.

Someone12342• 11 years ago

I agree that this is a legitimate intelligence target. All of the allies spy one one another all of the time, that's how we keep trust.

I think the biggest scandal that isn't discussed often enough (in the US) is not spying on foreign government officials for legitimate security-related reasons (e.g. this), it is spying on foreign government officials to give the US an advantage in trade negotiations or worse passing on "tips" to US-based private companies so they can gain an advantage during negotiations/bidding.

The US constantly beats the capitalism drum, and that's fine. But it seem hypocritical to beat the capitalism drum with one hand, while with the other quietly subverting capitalism by giving certain favored entities tips and advantages.

Even people in the US should be asking why large US corporations are given these tips/advantages/etc while small-medium US businesses are not. Let alone the immorality of helping a US company win against a foreign one due to state supplied corporate espionage.

The justification "well China does it!!1!" while true, is just kind of pathetic. China does a lot of things, doesn't make it right for a country that claims it is the beacon is capitalism and democracy to do the same.

sayhar• 11 years ago

The US constantly beats the capitalism drum, and that's fine. But it seem hypocritical to beat the capitalism drum with one hand, while with the other quietly subverting capitalism by giving certain favored entities tips and advantages.

For many of us, "capitalism" involves precisely this -- the wealthy using their wealth and power to cement their position.

wnevets• 11 years ago

capitalism, if you're not cheating you're not trying.

Someone12342• 11 years ago

Fair enough.

But let me ask you this: Why is the government helping large corporations to cheat more than small or medium companies? Even if we decide cheating is acceptable, shouldn't everyone be on an even footing in terms of this type of help?

Seems like the ultimate result is the big get bigger while the small get smaller.

cpursley3• 11 years ago

The correct definition is "cronyism", not "capitalism".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism

mindcrime4• 11 years ago

For many of us, "capitalism" involves precisely this

That's not capitalism at all. That's just corruption / cronyism and it can live "on top of" any economic system.

wil4212• 11 years ago

or worse passing on "tips" to US-based private companies so they can gain an advantage during negotiations/bidding.
But it seem hypocritical to beat the capitalism drum with one hand, while with the other quietly subverting capitalism by giving certain favored entities tips and advantages.

Do you have any sources for this? I am genuinely curious.

If there was anything in any of the leaked Snowden slides detailing any US companies they give info to that would be greatly appreciated.

jazzyk9• 11 years ago

There are more, but this is the best known instance, because Boeing lost a lot of money as a result.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/20/us-boeing-brazil-i...

"Snowden's documents, many of which were published by Brazil-based U.S. journalist Glenn Greenwald, revealed that Washington had spied on Rousseff's personal communications, those of state-run oil company Petrobras - which Rousseff once chaired - and countless Brazilian citizens".

roymurdock• 11 years ago

it seems hypocritical to beat the capitalism drum with one hand, while with the other quietly subverting capitalism by giving certain favored entities tips and advantages

Capitalism is a regulatory and economic framework that allows for the private ownership of capital and assets and is driven by selfish profit motives.

In a purely capitalistic system, we wouldn't even have a government to redistribute wealth and provide oversight, or in this case - to spy on other countries and provide information to a few select corporations. The socialistic thing for the government to do would be to distribute these secrets evenly among all US businesses.

So government favoring big business is actually another triumph of capitalism.

cpursley3• 11 years ago

I believe you mean "cronyism"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism

duaneb4• 11 years ago

Doesn't spying indicate a de facto lack of trust?

kazinator• 11 years ago

Doesn't it indicate a lack of trust to have an agency like the NSA in the first place?

(And, really, why would the US government and its agency trust some Germans overseas, when it doesn't trust its own people at home?)

Nadya8• 11 years ago

No. We don't trust each other. But if we all know we're all spying on each other we're a lot less likely to act up fearing that someone else will find out.

It's not a super friendly close relationship like you might have with a sibling or your lifelong best friend. But it's "I know you're not doing anything bad. You know I'm not doing anything bad. So until one of us does something bad, we can 'trust' each other and continue business like usual."

tptacek2• 11 years ago

The irony here is that the European Union states are famously among the worst industrial espionage offenders, particularly between Germany and France. This isn't a "US and China" thing.

wahsd• 11 years ago

Its really all just a show. Our economy runs purely on the perceived confidence built through illusion and leveraging the immense natural resources we have.

linkydinkandyou• 11 years ago

I'd expect my Government to spy on other Governments. We have a need to. Any American who objects to this is short-sighted.

What we shouldn't do is spy on American citizens within our borders as a routine practice.

caskance18• 11 years ago

Agree that American citizens are not legitimate targets in and of themselves, but they will routinely communicate with people other than American citizens and those communications mean that citizens will be spied on. That's globalization for ya.

kra34• 11 years ago

I don't understand what you mean when you say "spy on American citizens" do you mean court order/warrant approved surveillance? Even your local police can do that, its generally how criminal investigations are conducted.

happyscrappy3• 11 years ago

This story doesn't work to berate the US so move the goalposts. Maybe submit a story you have?

omouse• 11 years ago

well I guess we know who watches the watchers.

bizkeep2• 11 years ago

Trust, but verify.

on_• 11 years ago

Many people are saying the same thing:

Spying on other spying agencies seems like 100% fair game
This is legitimate activity for the NSA
I'd be pretty angry at NSA for being incompetent if they didn't spy on foreign intelligence agencies.

Correct. This is what spy agencies do. Edward Snowden is an American Hero, and it is a shame what has happened beyond the obvious. His name is invoked for shock headlines, and at this point there is almost no reaction to these disclosures and that is worrying. If there was a way to lower the power distance between "Government Actors" and citizens, we could expend resources cooperatively instead of competitively.

Until then, there will be numerous government agencies AND companies, on many continents and countries, building systems to collect and analyze your data creating a single point of failure. That sounds counter intuitive, but if we assume all of your data is essentially uniform and the Chinese/NSA/BND etc. all have essentially the same data. If even one of those places has a breach event, your data will be in the hands of bad individual actors. This leaves aside, that the data is already in the hands of questionable players.

To conclude, the Snowden docs were illuminating but no longer hold the shock they once did. Not much has changed. The initial disclosure confirmed for a lot of us what we already knew, and publicized it to those who didn't. The ongoing disclosures are marginal now and really a function of leveraging Snowden's name for ad-traffic. Hopefully, going forward there will be a framework for protecting privacy that regular, everyday people can easily use. Until then, these disclosures are just a disheartening reminder of the inability to seperate gov. tyranny from legitimate activity.

[0]Snowden is living in an undisclosed location in Russia, a country hostile to the US, and barred from entering America without being tried for treason. Disappointing.

cryoshon7• 11 years ago

There's some weird activity in this thread which I think bears mentioning.

Lots of people saying either "good, this is their job" and "old news"-- shill trademark phrases. I'm not making any accusations exactly, but I am concerned at the mass of simple, positive, and vapid comments in this thread.

digler999• 11 years ago

I was thinking the same thing, definitely some astro-turfing going on here...

cryoshon7• 11 years ago

Glad to see I'm not the only one seeing this. I have seen such behavior on other NSA-threads, as well as a few political threads in recent memory. I think, for the most part, HN is now "on the radar".

sonoffett4• 11 years ago

What the thinker thinks the prover proves. Instead of starting some metaconversation, it might be more productive to address how this information is new news or why the NSA should not be spying on foreign intelligence?

pdkl956• 11 years ago

Instead of starting a distracting discussion about the minutia of spying and whistleblowing, it might be more productive to address the actual problems at the NSA that need immediate attention.

gozo• 11 years ago

I agree, imagine people saying the same thing about China or Russia.

Not only that, they are completely missing Snowdens point. Which is that US intelligence are out of control and has become self-serving to the point of hurting US interests and principles.

pdkl956• 11 years ago

"old news"

I never dismiss the possibility of JTRIG-style disinformation or the far more common problem of people that have to argue a certain way because their salary depends on that point of view.

That said, I suggest considering Jacob Appelbaum's interpretation[1] of the "not surprised" dismissal: it' s a coping mechanism. It's an expression of frustration about not being able to do anything about the problem. The bigger question is if the phrase is being used to shut down discussion? Or can we acknowledge that frustration and try to find some way past it. It's difficult to care about a cause if you don't see even a theoretical way for the cause to succeed.

A particularly effective weapon is convincing your opponents that they cannot win. I suggest that the "cannot win" scenario only happens if we let it happen( by adopting a nihilistic, defeatist attitude.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9Xw3z-8oP4#t=594

(I recommend watching the entire talk - especially the question from someone in the NSA (!) at the end)

sonoffett4• 11 years ago

What do you think the purpose of the NSA is? I'm trying to understand if you're arguing that the NSA should not exist or if in this case it is acting outside its jurisdiction?

mindcrime4• 11 years ago

Let's face it, there are almost certainly NSA / CIA / FBI / $ASSORTED_GOVT_TLA plants here. Or, if not actual human plants, at least an automated system that posts astroturf "pro military-industrial-espionage complex" comments on their behalf. That they use this kind of technology is well established. And considering that HN is a pretty prominent social-media site, frequented by a lot of potential influencers in the technology community, I think the odds are approximately 100% that this site is one of their targets.

avn2109• 11 years ago

Agreed. Which leads to two questions: 1) Why is this post so far down the page? and 2) If anyone is qualified to combat automated (or perhaps even human) astroturfing by technical means, it's YC. Dang/other mods, are there efforts underway to detect and mitigate this?

I ask both on principle and because the quality of discussion is noticeably damaged by having to wade through many questionably real comments before finding actual discussion.

And of course it's not just the Americans doing this, undoubtedly the Russians/Chinese etc do something similar.

caskance18• 11 years ago

You really don't see how some people might legitimately think spying on foreign intelligence agencies is a key part of the NSA's job? Or that disclosing details of that process is actually leaking classified information that should have stayed secret?

Dismissing people as shills just because they disagree with you is incredibly arrogant.

cryoshon7• 11 years ago

It's not about the disagreement that makes me call them shills, it's about the speed at which they replied to the comment thread (before anyone else did), and that their comments are all negative/dismissive without content, de-railing, or minimizing the issue, rather than addressing it directly while discussing facts as is the HN comment standard.

ForHackernews• 11 years ago

So...spies spied on spies doing spying? I'm not seeing the problem here.

Luc• 11 years ago

Edward Snowden's just created a Twitter account. I've never seen the follower count go up that quickly: https://twitter.com/Snowden

krapp2• 11 years ago

looks legit.

caskance18• 11 years ago

It's got the blue checkmark. Have they ever gotten that wrong?

acqq• 11 years ago

"Edward Snowden ‏@Snowden 3h3 hours ago:

Meanwhile, a thousand people at Fort Meade just opened Twitter."

It surely sounds like him. And Chuck Norris can confirm. Hi Ed.

merb• 11 years ago

Currently the more get's leaked, the more I'm afraid.

I live in Germany and I hope that there won't be any global war. But currently the policits between countries getting stranger and stranger. Mostly due to the governements. Shouldn't they suppose to work for freedom and not war?

I mean I think even germany will send weapons to bad behaved countries (americans aswell), just for the money, who cares about weapon embargos?! Money is all and the fact that so many people care so much about Money and some kind of 'status' inside their culture makes things really really worse.

I hope that I can live in peace until I die. Hopefully.

mindcrime4• 11 years ago

Shouldn't they suppose to work for freedom and not war?

Here's an interesting take on that[1][2][3].

    Father: You're gonna make the world safe for democracy!

    Joe Age 10: What is democracy?

    Father: Well it's never bright clear on myself. 
    Like any other kind government it's got something 
    to do with young men killing each other I believe.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun_(film)

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKuhMS-N9ns

caskance18• 11 years ago

The opposite of war is peace, not freedom. They're very different and usually opposed.

codecamper• 11 years ago

I guarantee that the only reason the NSA did this was so that some few fatsos could continue to live in Germany, drink great beer with their friends, live in a swank apartment in the old town, and collect their foreign earned income exclusion.

trhway• 11 years ago

looking at recent busts of Russian "spies" (quotes because they were so inept in their activities) in US, it is pretty much the same picture - young lazy morons from well-connected families get a good job in a good country (i.e. like a trade representative in US of a Russian state owned corporation) with only downside is a possibility of being deported/non-grata-ed if busted (again they have been so inept that US seems to happy to just get rid of them instead of keeping them in prison)

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