US, Germany To Enter No-Spying Agreement 209
itwbennett writes "The German Federal Intelligence Service said in a news release that the U.S. has verbally committed to enter into a no-spying agreement with Germany. The no-spying agreement talks were announced as part of a progress report on an eight-point program proposed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in July with measures to better protect the privacy of German citizens. In the progress report, the German government found that U.S. intelligence services comply with German law. Also, the operators of large German Internet exchanges and the federal government did not find any evidence that the U.S. spies on Germans, the government said."
yeah, right (Score:5, Insightful)
and no one will ever cheat.
Re:yeah, right (Score:5, Funny)
I, for one, trust James Clapper to not lie to the Bundestag.
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That was hilarious, thank you. Too bad Sheldon had mod points tonight.
No problems ...wink wink (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No problems ...wink wink (Score:4, Insightful)
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Except that they will first create a committee to make it an European effort. After something is achieved, they will create a second committee that will replicate some of the effort by a national body, since the European body gets nothing done. Lots of discussing later not much is achieved at all.
But honestly I like the German/European wasting time and money better than the US, at least not all of the money was given to a large shady corporation.
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Germany may be the largest economy in the EU, but by far not the majority (20%). The largest economies are Germany (3,4M), France (2,6M), UK (2,4M), Italy (2,0M) and Spain (1,4M GDP per capita). It's an unfair simplification to say there is one economic engine of the EU.
Re:No problems ...wink wink (Score:5, Insightful)
The US will just contract out the spying to a third party (or country, ally). No harm no foul. Money talks.
Yes, the US will contract out it's Euro spying to Germany.
Meanwhile Germany will contract out it's America spying to the US.
Job done.
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As long as it creates jobs, Merkel will jump on it.
Re:yeah, right (Score:4, Insightful)
WHEREAS
"USA" shall mean the "United States of America" and all its government and military institutions. ...
"US Citizen" shall mean any citizen of "USA".
WHEREAS ...
"Germany" shall mean the Federal Republic of Germany and any and all government and military institutions.
"German Citizen" shall mean any citizen of "Germany".
NOW THEREFORE,
Germany and USA agree that neither party shall secretly or otherwise authorize any of its citizens to secretly obtain information about the other party's citizen or those citizen's communication, publication, ... within the other party's legal borders unless expressly authorized by the other party.
--snip--
Do you see the problem?
1) "Oh, sorry. We though he is not a citizen of your country because his name isn't a typical German/US name."
2) "We didn't spy within your borders. We just checked emails on Gmail, Yahoo, etc."
3) "We never authorized such spying. We will identify the person and fire him/her."
4) "Hey Max, I have this guy in [Berlin|New York] and have ample int that he might be plotting to commit acts of terrorism. Can you let me spy on him?" - Max: "Yeah, sure, go ahead. I also have a guy in [Munich|Orlando], can I spy on him? He seems to be interested in pressure cookers..." - "Of course, be my guest."
Just for the fun of it - I've been doing contracts for so many years, I love picking at them and trying to identify all the holes in them...
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The other flaw in the contract is that it only prevents citizens from spying on citizens. There is no mention of governments spying on citizens in either direction. So if Engineer John Doe spies on Scientist Jargon Spiegeldorf, it's a crime. If either Government agency spies on either person, it's not covered by the agreement.
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Not necessarily, at least not in Germany. Article 8 (1) and Article 9 (1) of German Basic Law, for example, expressly limit certain rights only to German citizens. Even though Article 3 (1), as you say, states that all "man are equal before the law", already a few articles later, certain rights are limited only to German citizens. With that in mind, one could argue, without problems, that certain rights (e.g. protection of people's privacy in Germany) can be, by law, limited to German citizens only.
And I'm
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the Obama government only violates the Constitutional Rights of its own citizens, it would never consider violating the rights of foreigners. That would be, like, wrong, and they'd never break foreign law.
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it would never consider violating the rights of foreigners.
Tell that to the parents of the kids killed by US drones.
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That is because, according to the US, foreigners have no rights, so there's nothing to break.
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and no one will ever cheat.
I do not know about Germany ... But the US won't have to cheat.
After all. The NSA is able to get the meta data for all US citizen phone calls and all of our browsing habits and emails and they are not spying on us.
I am sure they can "Not Spy" on Germany in much the same way.
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Noooo, that would be dishonest! Like spying on "friends"! Oh, wait....
Seriously, what the US is doing would be rightfully called an "act of war" in ordinary circumstances. As the current German political class is mostly composed of wimps with no backbone or personal honor, they try to sweep this whole mess under the rug. A few nice meaningless words can do the trick, as many Germans do not seem to understand what is going on. This is even more crass as Germany has made excessive bad experience with spying o
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This is the stupidest thing I have seen lately and that is saying a lot. I am sure every government operating a clandestine intelligence service is just going fold up shop and disband. What is really appalling is the European governments feigned outrage over the NSA intelligence programs when they routinely request and exchange intelligence data with the US. A lot of people today never question any piece of information as long as it makes the government look foolish or evil. Is there any independent proof t
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dpi is at the HARDWARE level. has been for well over 5 years now (probably longer).
I don't doubt for a second that the core routers and even out to the edge can do triggers at the hardware level and save data to remote storage. not every single packet on the backbone but they don't have to do that; they only have to know who is worth listening to and then set the triggers for those patterns (complex as they may be, the cpu is not involved anymore).
users (owners of the routers) can even write their own cod
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I have seen no discussions concerning the hardware and software architecture that is needed for a system supposedly capable of trapping and analyzing all the internet traffic as well as every email and tweet that crosses the wire.
Really? Google "lawful interception". Cisco [cisco.com] et al have been including these capabilities in the their equipment since at least 2005.
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I wasn't talking about the capabilities of the individual components needed to construct and operate such a system . I was referring to the sheer scale of the system. Yearly global IP traffic is estimated at 1.3 zettabytes per year (110.3 exabytes per month). Global mobile data traffic is estimated at 11.2 exabytes per month (134 exabytes a year). Forecasts show these figures increasing13-fold from 2012 to 2017. What type of hardware would be required to process and store this amount of data? Running querie
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Spying, by definition, is without permission therefore not agreed upon. Therefore an agreement not to spy has no meaning as you cannot agree to not agree about something. The whole idea is just political spin as both sides must know that this has no meaning and it is only to keep the plebs happy.
But but (Score:2)
Re:yeah, right (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, a verbal commitment is worth the paper it's written on.
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In other words, a verbal commitment is worth the paper it's written on.
It is every bit as good as a written constitution.
Re:yeah, right (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. I was going to say "don't fall for this, Germany -- we have an agreement for our government not to spy on us, too... it's called the Constitution... which our current Constitutional Lawyer president and former presidents have completely shit upon".
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Given how much Obama is against the Constitution in various ways, I always thought it ironic that he was a constitutional law professor. But then I think you really have to know something if you want to find the best ways to break it, so I now find it quite fitting.
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Given how much Obama is against the Constitution in various ways, I always thought it ironic that he was a constitutional law professor.
Oh, get off it. You sound like a Protestant complaining about how much Catholics hate the bible. People wave the constitution around like it's some sort of all-encompassing document that leaves absolutely no room for interpretation. It's not.
There are legitimate differences in interpretation. There are contradictions. Every politician finds something in the constitution inconvenient and chooses to ignore it.
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His views have pissed off the liberals and the conservatives, so he doesn't have an ideological screen. He just does whatever the hell he wants regardless of law and Constitution.
He even violated the War Powers Act in Libya. Response? It doesn't apply. Cue Eddie Murphy, "Wasn't me."
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His views have pissed off the liberals and the conservatives, so he doesn't have an ideological screen. He just does whatever the hell he wants regardless of law and Constitution.
We might agree, but I would argue that modern liberals and conservatives have roughly equal constitutional basis, Obama is just a mix of both that pisses off both sides. Republicans don't care about the crap W pulled, and liberals only care about the Bushy stuff Obama is doing. Personally, I think McCain/Palin would have been a lot worse, but that is mainly speculation.
He even violated the War Powers Act in Libya. Response? It doesn't apply. Cue Eddie Murphy, "Wasn't me."
While I see your point (and agree), it's worth noting that waiting for THIS Congress to pass any meaningful legislation isn't a winning pr
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How so? In a verbal agreement, there is no record of what was said. If there is a conflict, it is one person's word against another's. A written constitution at least provides something that you can point at and say "yes, you did agree to that" (even if the other party is powerful enough to say "well fuck you, I don't care").
It's every bit as good as a written Constitution with "United States" in the title.
Re:yeah, right (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, the last time someone made an oral commitment in the oval office it almost lead to impeachment. We can only hope.
Re:yeah, right (Score:4, Informative)
Almost? President Bill Clinton was impeached on 19 Dec 1998 by the House of Representatives on grounds of perjury to a grand jury (by a 228-206 vote) and obstruction of justice (by a 221-212 vote).
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Nobody really gave a shit anymore. Clinton's second term was almost done, it's like impeaching Obama now. Who cares about the result, what could happen? That he cannot continue as the prez? Well, DUH, he can't anyway.
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Impeachment is when the House sends the president to trial by the Senate. The Senate then either acquits him or removes him from office (in addition to referring whatever they find to the Department of Justice for prosecution under the next president).
We've had 2 impeachments in US history (nearly a third, but Nixon quit instead), both ending in acquittals.
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If Merkel & Co can look at what's been revealed and say "we see no spying here", it shouldn't be so hard for the US to keep abstaining from spying.
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Re:yeah, right (Score:5, Funny)
Re:yeah, right (Score:4, Funny)
you get warts if you break a pinky swear
I hear that's how we ended up with Texas.
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At which point they promptly execute you
But only if you're legally retarded
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You have to have the deranged pink horse sleep on your warts to get rid of them
And deranged pink horses are extremely Flatulent
Re:yeah, right (Score:5, Informative)
Poppycock! In fact, the President is the ONLY one in the federal government with a mandate to enter into treaty with other nations. Article 2 Section 2 gives him the power with the advice and consent of the Senate. Without the President initiating it, you have no treaty.
It doesn't get any clearer than that. It's the President who does the negotiating with the Senate. It starts with the President.
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Ignoring the insanity that the US controls al Qaeda, that is probably the way it will happen.
They'll outsource the dirty work to another country, kind of like the renditions where they'd send a prisoner to a country that did torture them to get the info they wanted so the US could say they didn't torture.
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"Social" engineering is control too. Who knows how much adherents and plan of actions got al qaeda with all the US drones over innocent citizens.
And they don't have to deny if they aren't catch. How they didn't got catched last time? not becuase Germany detected them, but because Snowden's leaks. They could keep doing their scheduled industrial spying as long as they don't get discovered.
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Insanity of the US controlling al Qaeda? Sorry, but if you provide funding and weapons then you are in a sense controlling them. The policy makers in the US Capital know damn well that the majority of the FSA rebels are al Qaeda. They also knew that a majority of those rebels in Libya were from al Qaeda. So while they may not have directed the actual movements of the troops, we don't know how much the US Government directed them. You think we just gave them guns and money and said "fuck it, do what eve
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Ignoring the insanity that the US controls al Qaeda, that is probably the way it will happen.
Does the US "control" Al Qaeda? Questionable. But we did fund them, and BushCo has been in bed with the Bin Ladens for some years now.
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I want one too (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I want one too (Score:5, Insightful)
We have one, it's called the fourth amendment.
See how well that turned out for us?
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Obligatory: http://www.xkcd.com/504/ [xkcd.com]
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It's kinda funny how literally shitting on each other is the German national pastime, and yet only the NSA knows who exactly is shitting on whom.
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
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It's kinda funny how literally shitting on each other is the German national pastime, and yet only the NSA knows who exactly is shitting on whom.
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
I don't think you've been to that part of the internet yet.
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but this is germany, and so literally shitting on each other IS what is culturally in vogue (if you believe the films that come from germany...)
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but this is germany, and so literally shitting on each other IS what is culturally in vogue (if you believe the films that come from germany...)
And yet there is only one country where "literally shitting on somebody" jokes are part of mainstream media. And it ain't Germany.
What's not to believe? (Score:4, Funny)
It's not like the US intelligence groups ever go beyond what laws allow, nor do they ever lie about such things...
What about my country? (Score:3)
If you don't get caught you didn't do it... (Score:2)
Sure, can America not spy on Americans too? (Score:5, Funny)
Sure, can America not spy on Americans too?
That sure would be nice.
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Assuming they do what they say, they were never spying on anyone in the first place...
Call me old fashioned but (Score:2)
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I'm curious - what world did you grow up in? Governments have spied on their allies since there were governments.
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I'm curious - what world did you grow up in? Governments have spied on their allies since there were governments.
Yes, but it's probably fairly new where a government will spy on its own people for another foreign government.
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It's not that it never happened, certainly. But it was understood to be forbidden, and people were very careful with small-scale stuff not to get caught.
This was way too big to keep secret for long and everyone involved had to have known that.
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"That was possibly in the days when US wasn't spying on its allies?"
I would not be so sure of that. I know at least one of our allies spied on us repeatedly through the last century... I wouldnt be too shocked if our government was already off the rails at the time too. But the actors back then acted very carefully, fearing the consequences if secrets got out.
It's well understood that small operations, run professionally, can work. But as your scale of operations grows it becomes more difficult to keep an o
Don't worry USA! (Score:5, Insightful)
The UK will spy on Germany for you!
Ummm.. (Score:4, Informative)
Did that agreement have a little smiley face on it near the end? Does anyone really expect the USA to be honest about their activities? This is more likely a coordinated display to show the US feels bad about being caught red-handed and now they can be trusted by the worldz again.
The UK will be next I'm sure... I don't know the lapdog priority in Europe though :P
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Wink wink, nudge nudge
(I'm surprised nobody's said that yet.)
Mutual spying agreement (Score:5, Insightful)
I read this as a "spying exchange agreement". The US promises not to spy on Germans, and the Germans agree not to spy on Americans.
Instead, if the NSA wants spy data on German citizens, they'll metaphorically "extradite" data that the German government has collected on its citizens (and vice versa).
That would be my guess, anyway.
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I read this as Germany falling in line with American interests
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Read the fine print.. (Score:3)
Here's how I think this agreement will turn out.
1) If violated the president agree's to have his feet tickled profusely.
2) To avoid being caught the US allows UK to spy on Germany using our equipment which they hand over the info to us.
3) US asks the UK not to Spy on the US for this benefit
4) US asks Germany to Spy on UK for the US for our agreement not to spy on German
Sounds legit (Score:4, Insightful)
- "We're not spying on anyone, we promise."
- "Here's proof you were spying."
- "Oops. Well, we won't spy on anyone anymore, we promise."
who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
I have no problem with the German government trying to spy on me. Why? Because the German government has no jurisdiction over me. German state security can't appear on my doorstep and arrest me, no matter how much Merkel or her minions may disapprove of me.
I do have a problem with the US government spying on me, because DHS and DEA can appear on my doorstep and make my life miserable if they don't like me or want to enrich themselves or find it useful for some other reason, circumventing the justice system and the rule of law.
Obama made restoring privacy and the rule of law a key point of his presidential bid, and it has turned out to be complete lies.
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I have no problem with the German government trying to spy on me. Why? Because the German government has no jurisdiction over me. German state security can't appear on my doorstep and arrest me, no matter how much Merkel or her minions may disapprove of me.
I do have a problem with the US government spying on me, because DHS and DEA can appear on my doorstep and make my life miserable if they don't like me or want to enrich themselves or find it useful for some other reason, circumventing the justice system and the rule of law.
Obama made restoring privacy and the rule of law a key point of his presidential bid, and it has turned out to be complete lies.
ever heard of interpol? guess who Obama gave free reign to do as they please?
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That's because you are an obedient, brainwashed little nationalist German who can't even read or understand the posting he is responding to.
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I have no problem with the German government trying to spy on me. Why? Because the German government has no jurisdiction over me. German state security can't appear on my doorstep and arrest me, no matter how much Merkel or her minions may disapprove of me.
There are several problems with your reasoning:
1) Governments may share data.
What prevents "Merkel or her minions" to give some or all of the information they gathered about you to Obama and his minions?
2) Governments may leak data.
Yoo are an Amerikan, ya? Yoo vill spy for us or ve vill publish ze correspondence vis ze mistress. Ze vife vill not like zis...
And, the most important:
3) Governments are composed of people.
What if one of "Merkel's minions" decides to sell your financial data to the highest bidd
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That's a US matter, not a German matter: obviously, if the US government can't legally spy on US citizens, it should also be legally prohibited to get this data from third parties.
I don't really care if they do; why would I?
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That's a US matter, not a German matter: obviously, if the US government can't legally spy on US citizens, it should also be legally prohibited to get this data from third parties.
"Legality" only matters when it can be enforced. Pray tell who is enforcing the law on the US government?
I don't really care if they do; why would I?
You don't? In this case, may I have your online banking URL, username and password?
Or, if your bank does the silly "identity verification" questions, let's settle for your address, DOB, etc.
But if I did, how would that be different from any other crook trying to rip me off?
Exactly my point. The "government" is comprised of individual people, some of whom may be "crooks trying to rip [you] off".
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Separation of powers.
How is that "financial data"? Are you stupid or something?
I'm sure they are, and that's why it doesn't matter whether the German government has a policy of spying on me or not; it
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What Cloud Providers or Email hosts are there? (Score:2)
Any good Cloud Providers or EMail hosts in Germany? I'm moving my data overseas.
fools (Score:5, Informative)
Please get a real journalist on this, not some blogger. A tiny bit of research will tell you a few interesting things that put things into perspective.
For example, we have an election upcoming, so obviously the government has to appear to be doing something about it, because the people don't like it. My bets are firmly on this dragging out until the election (of course, with constant reminders and "progress" reports) and afterwards, it'll quickly be forgotten.
For example, there are still laws in place from the end of WW2 and the times of the foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany that guarantee the allies spying rights. One of those agreements has just been revoked, to great PR effect. Almost all the mainstream media ignored that other agreements to the same effect still stand.
For example, the german equivalent, the BND, has been accused of working closely with the NSA, to the point of providing them with raw data. And our current prime minister would sell the whole country to her american friends if it gave her a benefit (a friendly hug would probably suffice). So one likely result is that they will agree the US stops spying, then the NSA lents its spy stations to the BND, who shares the data with the NSA, so everything remains the same, but technically, the NSA isn't spying within Germany anymore.
If you think the government or the current breed of corrupt egomanics that have taken over politics is there to protect you, you've been living under a rock the past twenty years.
Re:fools (Score:4, Funny)
sell the whole country to her american friends if it gave her a benefit (a friendly hug would probably suffice)
you remember GWB's famous backrub? that was for the dental records of all german citizens since the Kaiser. Tom, you really ought to have that sensitive molar of yours checked out.
Just like Sgt. Schultz from Hogan's Heroes! (Score:3)
"I see nussink! I vuss not hier! I dit not efen get ahp diss morning!"
Meanwhile back on the ranch (Score:3)
Meanwhile both governments continue to spy on their citizens.
Election Time in Germany (Score:2, Insightful)
It is election campaigning time in Germany: 'A German federal election will be held on 22 September 2013 to determine the 598 (or more, if overhangs are produced) members of the 18th Bundestag, the main federal legislative house of Germany.' (wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_2013)
These talks about a no-spying agreement is to calm down the population and to try to keep Germans happy about reelecting the incumbents or former incumbents of the major, established parties. The NSA spyin
US and Germany enter (Score:2)
Bwahahahaha! (Score:2)
I've never seen such a huge pile of shit!
the part they left out (Score:2)
"Also, the operators of large German Internet exchanges and the federal government did not find any evidence that the U.S. spies on Germans, the government said." ...which was viewed as a successful test of the US's surveillance systems in Germany, according to the NSA.
Excellent! (Score:2)
This will be the axis around which the world... um... hey, can I get back to you on this?
Joke? (Score:2)
yawn (Score:2)
Keep an eye on those Germans (Score:2)
I think they might be up to some spying.
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a bunch of guy already did that; George Washington, Ben Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and a bunch of others hammered it all out it is called the constitution and the bill of rights specifically the 4th amendment. Unfortunately ever since some muslim fundamentalist extremist terrorist flew a couple planes into our buildings the government thinks it can do whatever the hell it wants to screw the law.
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Enter into that same agreement with the US government?
we already have that it is called the 4th amendment expect this treaty to be treated with the same reverence. and why yes that is sarcasm now that you ask.
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Außer Bier, Autos und Heid Klum ist Deutschland für uns wertlos.
(Better: Ausser Bier, Autos und Heidi Klum gibt es in Deutschland nichts, was für uns wertvoll ist.
Even better: Find a variation without 'wertlos'. It just doesn't work very well in this context.)
Don't trust neither Google Translate nor your German teacher. No really, DON'T.
PS: Yes, I'm German and as anal retentive as they come :)