As the more credulous in the Tory Party and the Fourth
Estate continue to try and paint the deeply
subversive Guardian as a nest of
traitors, and continue to call for the arrest and incarceration of all who
work within its premises, the realisation is starting to dawn elsewhere in the
world that it might be A Good Thing to get a handle on the activities of the US
National Security Agency (NSA).
And nowhere is this felt more keenly than in Germany, where Der Spiegel had prompted the security
services there to investigate suggestions that
the US had hacked the mobile phone of Chancellor Merkel. The investigation “produced plausible information that Merkel's
mobile was targeted by the US eavesdropping agency”. How serious was this?
Very serious: “The
German chancellor found the evidence substantial enough to call the White House
and demand clarification”. This comes hard on the heels of the
Brazilians taking exception to the NSA snooping on them, and the French
President expressing
concern about the number of citizens of the Fifth Republic whose phone
calls are being recorded Stateside.
Today, matters escalated: whatever Barack Obama, or
whichever of his staff responded to Frau Merkel, said to her yesterday did not
placate the German leader. This morning, the
US ambassador was summoned by foreign minister Guido Westerwelle to receive
one of those upfront 24 carat bollockings that are reserved for occasions when the
country represented has incurred serious displeasure.
Now, while some pundits in the UK are looking at the row and
dismissing it with a brief “meh”,
that isn’t how it’s playing in Germany, and other mainland EU countries, with many papers
effectively telling Merkel “We told
you so”, as she had previously played down the NSA revelations. The hacking
news will push the Edward Snowden story back up the agenda.
It gets worse: as the BBC has reported,
“The European Parliament voted to suspend
its Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP) agreement with the US, in
response to the alleged tapping of EU citizens' bank data held by the Belgian
company SWIFT”. And still the level of debate at Westminster is typified by
Tory MP Julian Smith accusing the Guardian
of identifying security staff, which it has not.
What has happened to the German Chancellor is exactly the
kind of practice that the Snowden revelations, and the Guardian campaign, pointed up. But instead of having an informed
debate, and asking whether all this snooping is A Good Thing, we have stupid
MPs suggesting that we should just trust the NSA, and GCHQ, and that anyone
shining a light on the whole murky business is a traitor.
In Germany the politicians are waking up. Perhaps those in the UK will soon follow.
4 comments:
And maybe the David Miranda incident at Heathrow ruffled a few feathers as well.
The Yanks led the campaign for API - advanced passport and ID registration for airline passengers passed to governments in order to weed out potential terrorists. Much of Germany, with relative recent memories of living under state surveillance was opposed to API, it was even thought to be a breach of the constitution, but it was slowly forced on them. And what happened? A man NOT suspected of terrorist activity was stopped in transit after starting his journey in Germany. Have the Yanks got a team who's job is to think up new ways of offending whole countries?
The big difference between the UK and continental Europe when it comes to snoopings by the NSA, is that the UK (read GCHQ) is pretty much working for the NSA and against Europe, as if it was a hostile state.
several stories have emerged of the GCHQ allegedly taping into private companies (re Belgium telecoms), bugging European offices and officials and tapping citizen's communications (via the undersea cables) .... officially for anti-terrorist reasons, but practically very much for commercial and political expediency.
I shudder to think what the reactions at Westminster would be like if the French services were to bug MPs, sell the stories to tabloids, and "re-organize" the bank accounts in the City.
bur since it's "our side" doing it, it's just "meh" ;)
The british media and the securocrat shills are incredibly slow to recognize the impact on a state of having very large proportions of it having lived under a surveillance state.
Merkel grew up in East Germany.
While people are saying it's just spying and everyone does it, the Five Eyes are montoring everything!
Also the USA will not restrict their intelligence sharing to national security; they will share it with the US Trade representative and US based global businesses. They are conducting industrial espionage.
Also Belgian Telcoms is probably an attempt to tap either SWIFT or the EU, or both
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