Germans accuse U.S. of Stasi tactics before Obama visit

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/11/cnews-us-usa-security-germany-idCABRE95A0T820130611

by forgotAgain • 13 years ago

362 113 13 years ago

woah• 13 years ago

Not surprising. With the Gestapo, and then the Stasi, the Germans have an extensive cultural memory of the effects of comprehensive government surveillance of their lives. They are still surprisingly tolerant of the long term military occupation of their country by the US. It would have been interesting if Snowden had holed up in Germany instead of HK. I wonder if the inevitable US military extradition would have tested the tolerance of the Germans.

hga5• 13 years ago

According to Wikipedia, as of 2010 the US military has 52,440 people in Germany, and as of 2013 the German military had 188,921 active personnel and as of 2010 144,000 in their reserves.

That falls a bit short of "occupation" in my book. There has in fact been at least one technothriller based on the US military fighting its way out of Germany, based of course on the Anabasis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabasis_(Xenophon) Xenophon and 10,000 Greeks fighting their way out of the Persian Empire).

1morepassword• 13 years ago

How would you call it there were almost half a million fully armed German troops stationed in the US?

A great success for US board of tourism?

njharman• 13 years ago

One year, 2010, is not long term. Germany had been heavily occupied (by several nations) from end of WWII until recently. Recently being last 20years or so.

1123581321• 13 years ago

What is that book?

DasIch2• 13 years ago

The US and UK military are usually stationed in somewhat small cities and are a very important part of the economy in these areas. Most people don't care about the fact that they are still here in Germany and those that do care are happy about the income they provide.

Everytime they leave somewhere it's usually a source of great concern and not at all something to celebrate.

JMCQ87• 13 years ago

Die Linke probably disagrees.

fosap3• 13 years ago

While nobody celebrates, i think you are overstating the relevance. The troops live in their own quarters, hire their own contractors and shop in their own tax-free shops. Maybe they are using caps, but the impact on the local economy seems minimal.

Cass• 13 years ago

There's nothing surprising about the German tolerance of the US military bases, considering that they do nothing whatsoever to interfere with our lives or inconvenience us in any way, but do provide quite a lot of jobs. These are mostly medical or training facilities, many of them operated jointly by American and German forces, not some occupying force that's intent on overrunning our government or controlling the citizenry.

As far as public opinion goes, this is a complete non-issue, and I strongly suspect that if public opinion turned so far as to make it an issue, the US would withdraw their troops before entering into a war with a powerful western nation that would almost inevitably turn into another world war. This is really not what I'd call an occupation.

onli3• 13 years ago

Isn't the US already (slowly) withdrawing/reducing the stationed troops?

Besides, germany wouldn't really have a chance. The few nuclear rockets we control would probably not be ready in time. The USA could just bomb germany down, like it was planned in case of a war with the UDSSR.

rz2k• 13 years ago

It is also worth pointing out that the occupation of Germany ended in 1955.

The US military has a policy of being forward deployed around the globe, so it negotiates agreements with may countries around the world to station troops in strategic locations.

The military bases are there as a result of legal agreements and treaties, not because they would forcibly resist any attempts to expel them, and there is no sentiment in the US whatsoever to change that policy and begin fighting to establish bases in friendly countries.

For a parallel, look to Uzbekistan where the US operated an airbase after 9/11. In 2005, there was a massacre by Uzbek government forces, and the US said there ought to be an international investigation. Uzbekistan replied by rescinding the agreement for use of the airbase, and the US left. No shots were fired.

tekromancr3• 13 years ago

WORLD WAR III: This time, the Germans are the good guys.

flyinRyan3• 13 years ago

Keep telling yourself that but I've never seen a German base in the USA.

_ak• 13 years ago

They are still surprisingly tolerant of the long term military occupation of their country by the US.

It's not exactly occupation anymore. Plus the US brought in the big money through the Marshall plan, starting a big economic boom. Even nowadays companies can get cheap loans from KfW bank that is essentially Marshall plan money.

fallenhitokiri• 13 years ago

I think tolerate is the wrong word.

I live and grew up near on of the military bases. If I would not have met some people stationed there and had the chance to visit them I would only have known there is a big area which is well guarded.

There is and was no incident I am aware of involving someone from the US military which could have put them in a bad light.

Even people I know, who are strictly against military forces and war, do not really care.

From my point of view, and I think I am not alone with this one, it is pretty simple. They live there, do their jobs, do not cause trouble and provide jobs. Without considering taxes and other things it is like a branch of an American company.

uh_oh• 13 years ago

Thumbs up for this coming from the conservative party as well. As others have said, this really is a bi-partisan issue and we should build as broad a coalition of the unwilling as possible.

danielweber• 13 years ago

It's entirely typical for conservatives to dislike other countries' intelligence and military capabilities, for pretty obvious reasons.

fosap3• 13 years ago

I do not expect to much. Our governments are extremly careful not to interfere with US interests. Stasi documents about the CIA? Unlawfully given to the CIA and not published. The man responsible is now the president. Merkel, started her career in the pro-dictatorship eastern CDU. Worked for the FDJ (somewhat GDR equivalent to the Hilter youth) as PR manager.

Not doing anything against the abduction of Kurznatz by the CIA. "Opposing" the Iraq war, but allow the US air fields to operate. It goes on and on and on. This is just a little rethorics. See also: Isle "facebook" Eigner.

pgeorgi2• 13 years ago

We have elections in September, and this is an issue where they can't do anything, don't suffer in any way, but have a chance for free friendly press.

Meanwhile, the same conservative party added biometric photos and fingerprints to official documents (mandantory on some, optional on others); happily sends over flight and banking data to the US (they were in favor of the SWIFT agreement); established their own flavor of communication data ("metadata") retention policies ignoring both arguments and protects; collect traffic data "for street charge purposes only"; now want to use both for tracking down increasingly minor offenses (despite originally arguing that this wouldn't ever happen, and opponents to those laws are paranoid when assuming so much).

So yes, it's great that they oppose PRISM (if only to keep the topic in the media). But it's probably just out of jealousy because their own implementation is so much weaker.

return0• 13 years ago

this is a great movie about surveilance in the east germany. I don't know how accurate though.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/

kingi• 13 years ago

very imaginable

untog• 13 years ago

I have a nerdish interest in the Stasi for reasons I can't quite explain. I've not seen the movie, but I'd recommend Stasiland:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasiland

as an account of various people who lived under the Stasi. Also, The File:

http://www.amazon.com/The-File-A-Personal-History/dp/0679777...

The (again, factual) story of someone uncovering their own file and researching its history.

jckt2• 13 years ago

Probably not very accurate (just because most movies aren't, anyway). But I think most of the cast actually lived through the GDR years (in the GDR), and I figure that's how they acted so damn well.

To anyone considering watching this, if not for the history, watch it for the movie's sake. You will not be disappointed at all.

graup• 13 years ago

That movie is usually regarded as being one of the more accurate ones. E.g. Joachim Gauck (Germany's current president and former head of the Stasi Archives) said that save some inaccuracies many things are presented very well. [1]

Definitely worth watching!

[1] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Leben_der_Anderen#Deutsche_...

zalew2• 13 years ago

[trying to say without spoilers]

the inaccurate/ridiculous part is that he couldn't do what he did because every one of them had another agent(s) on them precisely to prevent such occurences. they spied on and controlled each other just like they did on citizens. other than that - great movie, and depiction of the strong influence such agencies had on personal lives (to make someone or destroy someone) is accurate.

you can also check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_%282012_film%29 with a bit similar theme.

flyinRyan3• 13 years ago

My understanding was the only reason what he did worked was because the whole thing was winding down. 2 years prior and things wouldn't have worked out so well at all.

danbruc3• 13 years ago

The headline sounds like an official government statement but then this guy is no one I ever heard of and the only quote I could find does not even mention the word Stasi.

  American surveillance (literally: compulsive checking) goes definitely to far if
  it interferes that much with the privacy of internet users. Something like this is
  unthinkable here. I thought we had overcome this era with the downfall of the DDR.

It is just ridiculous what they made out of this (unless I just failed to find the complete statement).

morsch• 13 years ago

Well, he is a member of the European Parliament, so there's that. Most MEPs aren't very widely know, though, even compared to members of the national assemblies. They also have the luxury of being in a sort of permanent opposition against national governments and the more powerful parts of the EU government.

I agree that the story is overblown, although the concern about the whole thing in Germany and all of Europe is obviously very real and hopefully will turn into a greater concern over what our own governments are doing. I hope a lot of conservatives are caught finger pointing in the next few days, if nothing else just to see them squirm when they're supposed to wave through the next set of laws curtailing internet freedom.

pvnick• 13 years ago

"Mr. Obama, tear down this PRISM"

wahsd• 13 years ago

Stasi.? Germans are simply shying away from comparing it to the Nazis' unimaginable wet dream because of a very self-conscious sensitivity about the matter. But don't fool yourselves, ignoring other unrelated, horrible outcomes that were a consequence of the times, this level of surveillance is by far worse than anything that has ever existed in all of human history. It is tantamount to mind reading, and without a doubt on the exact trail to that outcome.

danbruc3• 13 years ago

When it comes to surveillance the Stasi did a way better job than any NS organisation.

v0lta• 13 years ago

Through sheer manpower however. Because of this, it wasn't a secret that everyone has been watched. That doesn't make it better, but gives it an own taste compared to PRISM.

sentenza• 13 years ago

While I principally agree with you, I must add that _the_ data protection related historical event that impressed me most is how the Nazis used the excellent Dutch census data that fell into their hands to round up the Jews of the Netherlands. I don't know how widespread knowledge of this is (I was taught it in school), but I've heard it brought up a few times in discussions about personal data.

arianvanp• 13 years ago

You're confusing WWII germany and post WWII germany. Stasi was the ministry for homeland security of East-Germany in the post-WWII era untill the fall of the wall (1950- 1989). It has nothing to do with the Nazis (1930ish to 1945) The Stasi was a way to take hold of the country and get it stable again after the nazi regime fell. Though they did that by turning _EAST_ (not west) germany into a police state.

ericd2• 13 years ago

If anyone's interested in learning a bit more about the Stasi, The Lives of Others is a great film about a man who works for the Stasi, tasked with spying on some influential people.

pekk3• 13 years ago

If what is happening today is worse than anything ever, including the Holocaust you are referring to, then where are the facilities where the US is slaughtering women and children of ethnic minorities in order to eliminate them from the earth?

sciurus• 13 years ago

I'm almost positive that the comment you're replying to meant "this is the worst level of surveillance ever", not "this surveillance is worse than anything ever".

craigyk• 13 years ago

While we are pointing fingers... why are the Germans so set on laying the economic foundation for WWIII? We get it, you feel like you shouldn't have to rescue "lazy bums", but get over it already and suck it up. The US massively spent too reconstruct Germany after WWII, partially because of the realization that post-WWI financial destitution was part of the groundwork for WWII.

It's not like your entirely blameless here either Germany, your banks made the questionable decision to lend money to those lazy bums so they could buy back German goods.

bejar37• 13 years ago

Honestly, I'm starting to feel like the lack of comments from European leaders about the infringement of non-American's data might be because they know they might be the next to get caught with their hands in the honey pot. I can't tell if I'm just starting to be part of the tin-foil hat crowd though.

NameNickHN• 13 years ago

If they could, they would implement something like PRISM as fast as possible. The German parliament tries for years now to establish data collection.

salimmadjd• 13 years ago

We are in the Stasi 2.0 era now in US.

Everything you do, buy, places you visit, people you socialize, your interests, opinions, everything you say, etc. is under surveillance. Funny how East Germans would risk their lives just to escape their Stasi-controlled world.

Shivetya• 13 years ago

So they are mad why? They didn't think of it first or that all this exposure of the US version might mean someone will expose theirs?

To be honest I am not sure if any of these governments is trust worthy in this regard.

Smrchy• 13 years ago

The last time Obama held a public speech in Berlin he was cheered like he was Michael Jackson and the Pope in one person. This was before he was elected for his first term.

Back then there was no need to preselect his audience. Tens of thousands just came to celebrate him. It will be interesting to see how he is greeted by the German public this time. In Berlin. At the Branderburger Tor. Will he talk about freedom?

PavlovsCat• 13 years ago

"The more a society monitors, controls and observes its citizens, the less free it is," she said.

Okay, it's not Merkel herself who said that. But she sits still while people do, right?

I remember seeing some random youtube video of Merkel giving a speech during an election campaign, talking (nay, bragging) about video surveillance of inner cities (something she basically gives the CDU credit for, which "fought" for that), saying roughly: "some people say that's only useful to catch parking violations, but if you don't deal with parking violations, you don't have to be surprised if it gets worse."

To have Merkel be indignated on my behalf is a DISGUSTING idea. She's opportunistic and spineless, she stands for exactly nothing (other than "Security and Prosperity" of course; just like Kohl she wouldn't recognize what makes life great for decent people even after she squashed it). She, Obama, and all the other people who had their chances, in some cases decades of them, should consider just kindly shutting the fuck up, and sticking to their own, hopefully doomed, bandwagons.

wedesoft• 13 years ago

We Germans shouldn't forget that in 2009 our government tried to implement a similar kind of surveillance. This lead to Tauss leaving the social democrats and join the Pirate Party.

http://www.wedesoft.de/tauss-against-censorship.html

znowi• 13 years ago

Speaking of Stasi, I would like to recommend a great movie called The Lives of Others

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/

Germans accuse U.S. of Stasi tactics before Obama visit

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