An apology to our allies.

[AVGWarhawk]

CaptainMattJ:

Meanwhile Obama tries to increase spending in domestic programs that actually benefit the people and he gets endlessly harassed for it.

With one fundamental issue, there is no budget. What is being cut? Where is the funding coming from? More taxes......

[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.