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Published in Le Devoir
(Canada) on 17 July 2014
by Claude Lévesque (link to original)
(Canada) on 17 July 2014
by Claude Lévesque (link to original)
Translated from
by Charlie Hersh.
Edited by Laurence Bouvard.
One year after the storm has lifted on Edward Snowden’s exposés on the National Security Agency, the American agency responsible for electronic espionage, tension mounts again between the U.S. and Germany.
Two German spies have recently been arrested for having shown the CIA, another American espionage agency, confidential information about the deputies and government officials who are interested in the records … of espionage practiced by Americans in their country.
Right now, Berlin is thinking about providing typewriters to a part of its civil service, as the Russians have done in the past. Is the good old Remington Rand returning to work?
After the arrest of the double agents, Berlin discharged the person in charge of intelligence at the American Embassy in Berlin. It’s unheard of. Officially, the U.S. and Germany have an excellent relationship. They’re both members of NATO. One would sooner expect China or Russia to be involved in these kinds of actions … and yet. These behaviors were “normal” during the Cold War, but that was supposed to have ended in 1991.
The “scoops” attributable to Edward Snowden began to appear a little more than a year ago. A quarrel first began building between Berlin and Washington in June 2013, when it was revealed that the NSA has been putting wiretaps for years on the phone lines of several foreign government chiefs of state, including Angela Merkel. The scandal finally came to a rest with the promise to be nicer in the future. Tuesday, Barack Obama called the chancellor to pick up the pieces in the wake of this new episode of espionage.
Certain commentators, such as journalist James Kirchick of The Daily Beast, consider that the U.S. is right to spy on Germany, because Germany is not on the same page as the U.S. regarding hot topics like Ukraine and what sanctions to impose on Russia, considering that Germany does a lot of commerce with Vladimir Putin, unlike the U.S. Others say that it’s okay to spy on allies when they dare to show their independence. It’s forgotten that even in the U.S., only a few months ago, did the CIA search the computers of senators who were investigating them!
It’s a vicious cycle in this case: Germans are particularly allergic to espionage, having tasted it under two totalitarian regimes. They don’t hesitate to complain and their elected officials take things seriously, with the consequence that American spies want to know what they know about them. And the cycle continues. The scenario is a little reminiscent of the minimalist cartoon Spy vs Spy, which appeared a few decades ago in the satirical magazine Mad.
This time, it’s the CIA that is in the hot seat, especially considering that we’ve been talking about the NSA’s funny business for a year. Let’s talk still about them, since the revelations of Edward Snowden, currently exiled in Russia, continue. The most recent piece of information published in The Washington Post indicates that nine-tenths of data — instant messages, emails, files, messages on social networks, chats — intercepted by the NSA are considered irrelevant by information professionals. It’s like the agency is a large trawler, spreading its immense nets but only picking up guppies.
Privacy laws have shown to be rather ineffective against the abusive practices of intelligence agencies, telecommunication companies who cooperate with those agencies and all the other companies who are thirsty for any information that can make them profit.
In the face of these occurrences, computer specialists have proposed ways to protect one’s personal information. But good luck: The NSA’s nets also include anyone who frequents sites like TOR, The Onion Router and TAILS, The Amnesic Incognito Live System, which offer encryption tools to citizens who have had enough of being watched by Big Brother.
Two German spies have recently been arrested for having shown the CIA, another American espionage agency, confidential information about the deputies and government officials who are interested in the records … of espionage practiced by Americans in their country.
Right now, Berlin is thinking about providing typewriters to a part of its civil service, as the Russians have done in the past. Is the good old Remington Rand returning to work?
After the arrest of the double agents, Berlin discharged the person in charge of intelligence at the American Embassy in Berlin. It’s unheard of. Officially, the U.S. and Germany have an excellent relationship. They’re both members of NATO. One would sooner expect China or Russia to be involved in these kinds of actions … and yet. These behaviors were “normal” during the Cold War, but that was supposed to have ended in 1991.
The “scoops” attributable to Edward Snowden began to appear a little more than a year ago. A quarrel first began building between Berlin and Washington in June 2013, when it was revealed that the NSA has been putting wiretaps for years on the phone lines of several foreign government chiefs of state, including Angela Merkel. The scandal finally came to a rest with the promise to be nicer in the future. Tuesday, Barack Obama called the chancellor to pick up the pieces in the wake of this new episode of espionage.
Certain commentators, such as journalist James Kirchick of The Daily Beast, consider that the U.S. is right to spy on Germany, because Germany is not on the same page as the U.S. regarding hot topics like Ukraine and what sanctions to impose on Russia, considering that Germany does a lot of commerce with Vladimir Putin, unlike the U.S. Others say that it’s okay to spy on allies when they dare to show their independence. It’s forgotten that even in the U.S., only a few months ago, did the CIA search the computers of senators who were investigating them!
It’s a vicious cycle in this case: Germans are particularly allergic to espionage, having tasted it under two totalitarian regimes. They don’t hesitate to complain and their elected officials take things seriously, with the consequence that American spies want to know what they know about them. And the cycle continues. The scenario is a little reminiscent of the minimalist cartoon Spy vs Spy, which appeared a few decades ago in the satirical magazine Mad.
This time, it’s the CIA that is in the hot seat, especially considering that we’ve been talking about the NSA’s funny business for a year. Let’s talk still about them, since the revelations of Edward Snowden, currently exiled in Russia, continue. The most recent piece of information published in The Washington Post indicates that nine-tenths of data — instant messages, emails, files, messages on social networks, chats — intercepted by the NSA are considered irrelevant by information professionals. It’s like the agency is a large trawler, spreading its immense nets but only picking up guppies.
Privacy laws have shown to be rather ineffective against the abusive practices of intelligence agencies, telecommunication companies who cooperate with those agencies and all the other companies who are thirsty for any information that can make them profit.
In the face of these occurrences, computer specialists have proposed ways to protect one’s personal information. But good luck: The NSA’s nets also include anyone who frequents sites like TOR, The Onion Router and TAILS, The Amnesic Incognito Live System, which offer encryption tools to citizens who have had enough of being watched by Big Brother.