An apology to our allies.

[Bilge_Rat]

This is rich. Apparently, it was French and Spanish intelligence services that spied on their own citizens, then shared the data with the NSA:

NSA spy row: France and Spain 'shared phone data' with US

Spain and France's intelligence agencies carried out collection of phone records and shared them with NSA, agency says

European intelligence agencies and not American spies were responsible for the mass collection of phone records which sparked outrage in France and Spain, the US has claimed.

General Keith Alexander, the head of the National Security Agency, said reports that the US had collected millions of Spanish and French phone records were "absolutely false".


"To be perfectly clear, this is not information that we collected on European citizens," Gen Alexander said when asked about the reports, which were based on classified documents leaked by Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor.


Shortly before the NSA chief appeared before a Congressional committee, US officials briefed the Wall Street Journal that in fact Spain and France's own intelligence agencies had carried out the surveillance and then shared their findings with the NSA.


The anonymous officials claimed that the monitored calls were not even made within Spanish and French borders and could be surveillance carried on outside of Europe.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...a-with-US.html

so now I'm confused, is someone supposed to apologise on behalf of France and Spain?

[Herr-Berbunch]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

. . . so now I'm confused, is someone supposed to apologise on behalf of France and Spain?

Oui, Si.

Translated (in a fashion) in to English pronunciation - We see. Oh the conspiracy!!!

[Bilge_Rat]

with very little digging, it turns out the German BND, their equivalent to the NSA, is doing the very same kind of spying/monitoring as the NSA. The NSA and the BND also share extensive info:

Why are the media ignoring the NSA’s relationship with German intelligence?

As I wrote last week, cooperation between the American NSA and the BND, Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, is extensive and intimate. The German magazine Der Spiegel has done some worthy reporting on this. The NSA-BND cooperation angle was prominent in the German press over the summer, after Edward Snowden’s initial revelations about PRISM had first been reported. Der Spiegel revealed in July, based on Snowden’s pilfered documents and other sources, that the connections between the NSA and the BND are much tighter than previously thought and include extensive data sharing and the monitoring of phone calls and other electronic communications. The head of the BND, Gerhard Schindler, has acknowledged the relationship. Hans-Peter Friedrich, the German Interior Minister, expressed thanks for “information provided by our American friends” to thwart terrorist attacks, even as he and others claimed not to know anything about the agencies’ cooperation. Merkel includes herself in the axis of ignorance.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/ro...-intelligence/

The Europeans are happy to help the United States spy on everybody. They just won't admit it

The joint NSA-BND monitoring facility in Bad Aibling, which everyone is supposed to pretend doesn’t exist, is still operational. Gerhard Schindler, the BND’s chief, has essentially admitted to cooperation with the NSA before a European Parliament intelligence committee in July. The Bad Aibling site was crucial to the NSA and BND’s last joint venture on the controversial Echelon program. This too monitored mass communications and included spying by America, Britain, Canada and Australia, according to Der Spiegel. More recently, similar cooperation between European intelligence agencies and the NSA has been documented elsewhere in Europe, including Sweden.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/ro...wont-admit-it/

Mass Data: Transfers from Germany Aid US Surveillance

German intelligence sends massive amounts of intercepted data to the NSA, according to documents from whistleblower Edward Snowden, which SPIEGEL has seen. The trans-Atlantic cooperation on technical matters is also much closer than first thought

Day after day and month after month, the BND passes on to the NSA massive amounts of connection data relating to the communications it had placed under surveillance. The so-called metadata -- telephone numbers, email addresses, IP connections -- then flow into the Americans' giant databases.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-914821.html



given the close ties between the German BND and the NSA, it is hard to believe the Germans themselves did not know the Chancellor's communications were being monitored.

sooooooo..do we now need someone to apologise on behalf of Germany?

[TarJak]

News flash. Spies spy on people including politicians!

[Penguin]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

given the close ties between the German BND and the NSA, it is hard to believe the Germans themselves did not know the Chancellor's communications were being monitored.

sooooooo..do we now need someone to apologise on behalf of Germany?

Nein!
You're looking at it from the wrong angle: according to our glorious rulers it's ok to spy on their citizens, but not on them.
I wrote something about this in the other thread: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...9&postcount=25

Afaik Merkel's cell was spied upon with the help of an IMSI catcher, not really a brand new thing, used by German police authorities since many years, especially at demonstrations. That the BND didn't catch the surveillance of Merkel's phone, is just their typical incompetence.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by danasan

I totally agree on that.

Let me add, please, it is about resources as well: Oil, gas, water etc.

On another note, it seems to me as if the political part of the USA ( not the people ) is going to continue their politics of isolation from the rest of the world.

I don 'T know if they isolate themselves from the rest of the world, but they certainly actively shift their focus from slowly dying Europe, which can mean only little to them these days, to the pacific - that is where the band now plays. The EU simply is not being taken serious by America, Russia, China, Brazil, India. It gets actively ignored, snubbed, bypassed.

Far more serious is that America alienates its biggest creditor. And that will backfire sooner or later. Even more since said creditor seems to probably prepare his return to a gold standard, and claiming the status of global reserve currency for itself in the forseeable future. Americans tend to appease themselves by thinking China has lots to lose when letting America fall. - And that is where they think wrong. Its not as if China has nothing to lose. It's just that it has less to lose if they let America fall. Sticking with it, just mounts the final bill. Its a bit like like with the Tiger chasing two men. You must not run faster than the Tiger. You only need to run faster than the guy beside you.

P.S. Bernie Ecclestone recently said something like this: Europe is done. It will make a nice tourism ressort, and that's it. - In a nutshell, he is right.

[Wolferz]

We're sorry, we're sorry.
We're NOT sorry.

[danasan]

Originally Posted by Skybird

SNIP

Far more serious is that America alienates its biggest creditor. And that will backfire sooner or later. Even more since said creditor seems to probably prepare his return to a gold standard, and claiming the status of global reserve currency for itself in the forseeable future. Americans tend to appease themselves by thinking China has lots to lose when letting America fall. - And that is where they think wrong. Its not as if China has nothing to lose. It's just that it has less to lose if they let America fall. Sticking with it, just mounts the final bill. Its a bit like like with the Tiger chasing two men. You must not run faster than the Tiger. You only need to run faster than the guy beside you.

P.S. Bernie Ecclestone recently said something like this: Europe is done. It will make a nice tourism ressort, and that's it. - In a nutshell, he is right.

Our former chancellor Helmut Schmidt said a couple of years ago in one of his books and a lot of forums of interested managers that there will only be a couple of leading currencies left in the world within the next 20 years. He didn't mean the US $...

[danasan]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

NOT SO: Truman officially signed off in 1951...and yer' not a suburb, yer' a buffer zone and still the 'strongman of Europe'! Sauerkraut...That's gute Soül 'Fude' BBY...ein Rueben Sandwich...mit ein HAMM'S! served every day in the oval office, just to keep Das Frütkake, Barb Bachman quiet...

I would prefer to be quoted in a correct and complete manner, please:

"We are nothing better than a "suburb" of the USA today. But I really do wonder if it could be worse being a "suburb" of China or Russia? I'm fine with that."

I am not fine with being a suburb of any other country at all, but, to make it clear, I am NOT LUCKY with the so called "allies".

[Mr Quatro]

Don't believe everything you read, bubblehead

History proves, as do many school books in other countries also prove, facts have not always been as accurate as they have been portrayed.

When the truth of flight 007 Korean Airlines is finally told no one will probably be left around that cares.

We don't owe apologies without all of the facts being told

[Skybird]

There is diplomatic fallout for the US. However, the simple truth, as far as Germany is concerned, is this.

German counter intelligence and the Bundeswehr's much praised cyber warfare protection division that was launched some time ago with a lot of hoorays and hellos, have done a lousy job in defending against the NSA's attacks.

And German business companies additionally have a lousy reputation for their cyberattack protection measures.

Germans are romantics. We do not do things - we dream them for the better and write a poem about them. If it is stupid and anti-Israeli enough, the author even gets applause and wins a literature prize for it. That scares all our enemies away, and we are safe again.

As far as I know, the BND is said to be very competent in one field only: and that is its number of HUMINT contacts and general information status in the ME.

I Do not think I took you 'out of context' here, other than on the fact of Truman signing an 'official' end to the state-of-war in 1951

Be fair, the sovereignty was granted 4 years after that and the final peace treaty was only signed 23 years ago.
Though I think he missed that last treaty altogether

It's electrifying still to see him on that favorite Fenian currency and international medium of exchange...the $ C-note no euros fer me BBY!

Ah, but I was referring to his employment as a British government spy against the British terrorists and their French allies, before he joined those other British terrorists and the French against the British government.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Benjamin Franklin?
Paid by all sides to spy on their own population and on the foriegners.
Not much has changed in the couple of centuries apart from the technology.

Originally Posted by Tribesman

Ah, but I was referring to his employment as a British government spy against the British terrorists and their French allies, before he joined those other British terrorists and the French against the British government.

Citation needed.

[AVGWarhawk]

"I see nothing...."

Sgt. Schultz

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Citation needed.

Why?