US Government may have tapped Angela Merkel's Mobile Phone.

[Thanas]

I don't doubt that to some degree German intelligence (unless they are being totally inept again, which is not out of the question) has its sources within the US Government. However, they clearly do not have the budget for what the NSA is doing, aka intercepting everything.

The official NSA budget is 10.5 billion dollars. The entire US intelligence apparatus is paid over 50 billion a year, not counting secret sources of funding. The entire budget for the BND (German intelligence agency) is 350 million dollars.

That is the excessive level. It is not out of the question that the money the NSA focuses on Germany alone vastly outstrips the budget.

[The Guid]

To be fair to the US, during the recent EU/EURO shennanigens I wanted to know everything I could about what European leaders were planning - and I'm a junior sales officer in a tiny company that occasionally sells to Europe. Is it that surprising that the US, with all its ties and trade with the US, would get its hands on every piece of information it could? You're bound to get something out of Merkel's conversations with other party officials however careful she was being.

This doesn't necessarily condone the NSA actions, but it feels like a motivator nobody is talking about.

[Thanas]

Because it is immaterial. Shooting my neighbour might benefit me because he would stop banging his drums at 3am but it would not make it legal nor absolve me of any blame nor make my actions proportional.

[Siege]

I don't think it was a fun day to be General Alexander.

John Kerry: NSA spying 'reached too far'
US Secretary of State said a thorough review is underway to prevent inappropriate methods of surveillance

The US Secretary of State has become the most senior member of the Obama administration to admit that activities by intelligence agencies may have gone "too far" as the furore over America’s alleged eavesdropping on their allies continues.

John Kerry said he would work with US President Barack Obama to ensure there would be no further "inappropriate" work carried out by the National Security Agency (NSA).

Mr Kerry’s comments came after Washington was forced to deny reports last week that President Obama knew German Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone was under surveillance and did not move in to prevent her communications from being monitored.

Ms Merkel is one of 34 foreign leaders to have been monitored for years, according to intelligence leaks from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Speaking during a conference call, he also defended the need for surveillance as a method of countering terrorism, according to the BBC. “We have actually prevented airplanes from going down, buildings from being blown up, and people from being assassinated because we've been able to learn ahead of time of the plans,” Mr Kerry said.

“I assure you, innocent people are not being abused in this process, but there's an effort to try to gather information. And yes, in some cases, it has reached too far inappropriately.

“And the president, our president, is determined to try to clarify and make clear for people, and is now doing a thorough review in order that nobody will have the sense of abuse,” he added.

Luckily innocent people are not being abused! Except for when their private information is collected without their consent and the laws of their societies are flagrantly broken by unsupervised and from the looks of it utterly unrepentant intel cowboys, of course. Also, the president knew nothing! But we totally prevented airplanes from being brought down (by spying on Angela Merkel)!

Is anyone buying this insane drivel anymore? You'd think the least he could do is attempt to is make a coherent argument, but apparently not.

It gets better though:

US promises not to spy on UN
UN says it has been assured the US does not and will not spy on it, but doesn't comment on whether it do so in the past.

The United Nations has said the United States has pledged not to spy on its communications after a report showed the National Security Agency had gained access to the UN video conferencing system.

"I understand that the US authorities have given assurances that United Nations communications are not and will not be monitored," UN spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters on Wednesday.

He declined to comment when asked if US authorities had previously spied on UN communications.

The United Nations contacted US authorities after spying accusations were reported by German news magazine Der Spiegel in August, citing documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

I'm sure this brazen violation of the inviolability of diplomatic missions also stopped many buildings from being toppled by terrorists. Wait, didn't I read that talking point before somewhere? Oh, right:

NSA pushed 9/11 as key 'sound bite' to justify surveillance
An internal document recommended that officials use fear of attack when pressed to explain agency's programs

The National Security Agency advised its officials to cite the 9/11 attacks as justification for its mass surveillance activities, according to a master list of NSA talking points.

The document, obtained by Al Jazeera through a Freedom of Information Act request, contains talking points and suggested statements for NSA officials (PDF) responding to the fallout from media revelations that originated with former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Invoking the events of 9/11 to justify the controversial NSA programs, which have caused major diplomatic fallout around the world, was the top item on the talking points that agency officials were encouraged to use.

Under the subheading “Sound Bites That Resonate,” the document suggests the statement “I much prefer to be here today explaining these programs, than explaining another 9/11 event that we were not able to prevent.”

NSA head Gen. Keith Alexander used a slightly different version of that statement when he testified before Congress on June 18 in defense of the agency’s surveillance programs.

I'm sure the citizens of Europe and indeed the world will sleep soundly tonight knowing brave Sir Alexander is on the job of keeping us all free from the terror of terror. Meanwhile back in the real world you've pissed off pretty much every large telecommunications company on the planet, all of your allies, and the international framework organization whose job it is to make the world safer for everybody. Grats on the massive waste of political capital; that's some way of keeping Americans safe you got there.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Siege, man, thank you for that, for it is hilarious.

Under the subheading “Sound Bites That Resonate,” the document suggests the statement “I much prefer to be here today explaining these programs, than explaining another 9/11 event that we were not able to prevent.”

Until, at least, you remember that the US had info for the actual 9/11 as well, but for various reasons failed to prevent it. Oops.

[Irbis]

Do you really think that nothing will come of a EU-wide directive to shift data protection away from the Member States toward a Brussels level? I find that very unlikely.

To give you delayed reply - yes. Because there is already one such directive, which I described in more detail here (separate thread as it is not relevant in any way to Merkel's phone). So far, it had been a spectacular failure, and it will remain to be so as long as USA has so many servile insiders influencing that commission. Popular rage only goes so far.

[Siege]

That's a fair enough sentiment, but Rome wasn't built in a day. It's clear that individual member states are too easily compromised or played off each other; the Commission is far from perfect but it's the best bet the EU has against foreign fuckery at this point in time. So it's incremental baby steps and the open scepticism towards US intentions regarding information sharing coming out of the Commission is something I feel is very hopeful.

In the long run it may turn out Brussels is simply leveraging the outrage to accrue more power for itself but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one. After all it's not like existing data protection laws are helping one goddamn iota against the deranged fuckwits running the NSA, so it's not like there's much to lose, is there?

[Irbis]

That's a fair enough sentiment, but Rome wasn't built in a day. It's clear that individual member states are too easily compromised or played off each other; the Commission is far from perfect but it's the best bet the EU has against foreign fuckery at this point in time. So it's incremental baby steps and the open scepticism towards US intentions regarding information sharing coming out of the Commission is something I feel is very hopeful.

The thing is - USA don't need Prism. They don't even need Safe Harbor. USA control at the moment 3 crucial pieces of the Internet: A) infrastructure. USA has wiretaps on a lot of undersea fiber optic cables or in exchange points like DECIX, plus eavesdrops where it can with ECHELON. B) software - all largest internet servers and service providers, like Apple, Google, Yahoo, Amazon, or Microsoft are in the USA, where government can easily influence them. C) traffic - not only ICANN is US controlled, most of big DNS servers are in the USA (which rogue websites like Wikileaks painfully learned can be used against them).

Together, these allow US agencies to reroute most of world's network traffic somewhere they can read it, regardless of laws or agreements. Prism is just cherry on top, that could be replaced by any number of different systems. Unless EU manages to somehow internationalize ICANN and gets rid of eavesdrop infrastructure, they can produce any number of laws, nothing is going to change.

[Siege]

To that I would say that yes, you're correct, but a multipolar world won't simply materialize out of thin air. Again, it's incremental baby steps until hopefully at some point in the not too distant future the EU can give US securocrats the finger. Realistically speaking that point may very well be decades off, but then at this point in time the EU has only existed for twenty years. Look, I'm as frustrated with the state of things as you are, but that's the hand we've been dealt. Do you envision some other solution that doesn't boil down to sitting here taking it in the ass and grumbling about it?

[Irbis]

Again, it's incremental baby steps until hopefully at some point in the not too distant future the EU can give US securocrats the finger.

They would need to also show the finger to the corporations. Which, despite most of the really big ones being US based, they readily bend down for and drop their pants on command. How else you can explain fact Dutch-Irish tax sandwich still exists?

Realistically speaking that point may very well be decades off, but then at this point in time the EU has only existed for twenty years. Look, I'm as frustrated with the state of things as you are, but that's the hand we've been dealt. Do you envision some other solution that doesn't boil down to sitting here taking it in the ass and grumbling about it?

Oooh! Even two solutions! One more unrealistic than other!

External solution - that trade war USA threatened to force Safe Harbor laws? Say "bring it" and unilaterally cancel Safe Harbor, replacing it with EU-wide policy. Call ban on all sharing of protected data of EU citizens abroad without EU level agency permission - worded to encompass both Echelon and German installations letting NSA monitor all of European traffic, start fining every country breaking it. In short, finally enforce all these pretty privacy rights EU citizens "have". Negotiate agreements as one, not as individually weak small states.

Internal solution. One, make a set of EU-funded, privacy-guaranteed services available for free to every citizen. For example, email with Lavabit level security - perhaps tied to electronic signature, mail that can be also used as your login to modern e-administration? Duplicate DNS structure, too. Fund secure, free internet browser development, based on Firefox model. Next, replace connection points between internal EU network and outside internet with secure ones, monitoring ingoing traffic (if we are really in the dream mode, filtering and killing spam floods and DDoS attacks too), perhaps displaying warnings if users try to access websites tied to companies confirmed to break privacy laws. In short, go "great firewall of China" except one designed to protect your laws, not spy on you.

Wishful enough?