Point very well taken.
Indeed I think it can be generalized. We Americans look to our neighbors to defend us from the government and the Germans tend to look to the government to defend them from their neighbors.
Posted on 10/26/2013 5:53:34 AM PDT by SoFloFreeper
European leaders united in anger as they attended a summit overshadowed by reports of widespread U.S. spying on its allies.... Angela Merkel said had shattered trust in the Obama adminstration...
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
Hier ebenfalls - u.zw. seit Helmut Schmidt Kanzler war...
[...] it was my personal experience and my observation as well that Americans have no idea of the importance Germans place on privacy. They have extensive "Datenschutz" laws in place protecting the privacy of everyone. This concern applies even to taking of photographs and publishing them of the front of one's house.
I can corroborate your observation, but think that one should view this in a more-differentiated manner.
The Germans used to prize their personal privacy (remember the big noise they used to make about their precious "Bankgeheimnis?"), at least with regards to their expectation of privacy vis-à-vis their neighbors, coworkers, etc. - but less so vis-à-vis Big Gummint.
Of course, there was that brouhaha in the early-1980s about the National Census, but that was in the wake of the Nachrüstung (to counter the SS20s in the East), Waldsterben, the whole Öko Movement, etc., and I so I feel that it's safe to say that it was mostly due to a very successful P.R. campaign of the Far Left. Max and Erika Mustermann wouldn't really have had a problem with it, if they hadn't been goaded into it by the hissy fit that the Greens & Co. were throwing at the time.
Regards,
Point very well taken.
Indeed I think it can be generalized. We Americans look to our neighbors to defend us from the government and the Germans tend to look to the government to defend them from their neighbors.
Once you recognize the countries, you will understand why there will be no new members to this club. That's why the Euros are so jealous. Wiki describes it as a "naval agreement" but it goes way, way beyond that. The "naval agreement" is probably just a cover.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AUSCANNZUKUS
I think the Republicans think it is the politics as usual game. Where they strive to get as much pork as they can with every bill passed. The DNC plays this thought well, as long as they can continue pushing their communist agenda.
They like the pork as well, but they put communism first. GOP puts pork first, Constitution second.
Don't kid yourself, these spying programs have been going on for decades, likely dating back to the 1940's. The only thing that's changed is the maturity of the technology and techniques used to spy.
What's different NOW is that the NSA's "been caught" and the rest of the world is feigning outrage as if they don't do it themselves (I assure you, they do.)
I think the revelation is just a convenient excuse to claim loss of trust. They aren't saying what the real reason is.
you are correct, but the media was had their collective panties in such a giant wad over it too. Of course, now they are silent and some even saying that “it’s the price of freedom”
In all fairness, a LOT of chickens are coming home to roost because of Snowden.
His latest revelation is going to sting. He is going to release the list of foreign intelligence services that were all in favor of the NSA spying on their citizens and political leaders.
Once foreign governments find out that their own intelligence agencies were betraying them and their people, there are going to be a LOT of unemployed spooks.
And they aren’t going to be rehired by those countries radically improved counter-espionage intelligence services.
US Canada England Australia New Zealand?
If they trusted Obama before, then they are as stupid as 52% of American voters. The education will do them some good.
They will. and what you say will also be said about surrender Republicans:
eventually sensible people will look back ... and question why the Republicans (the opposition party) allowed him to get away with such destructive and incompetent bahavior.
I think they will conclude that the Republican Party was corrupt, complicit, and guilty of ideological collusion with like-minded politicians.
Merkel has learned to never let a crisis go to waste.
> I think the revelation is just a convenient excuse to claim
> loss of trust. They aren’t saying what the real reason is.
My guess is the loss of trust is due to the Kenyan occupier and his coterie of Chicago Bolsheviks.
The Growing Rift With Saudi Arabia Threatens To Severely Damage The Petrodollar
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3083615/posts
You are so right. And the only way he knows how to govern is to spy on people and find out their weaknesses then blackmail them into compliance. Hey, it works with Congress, and the Supreme Court, so he figures it will work world wide.
Yup.
I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we ... [blah, blah, blah] ... restored our image as the last, best hope on earth.Obama 2008
Way to go, genius!
Seriously, though, this was going on way before Obama. In 1990 Stansfield Turner (former director CIA) wrote an article that explained how, in a post-Cold-War world, US intelligence services would be maintained at Cold War levels to engage in political and economic espionage of both friendly and competitor governments, foreign companies and other commercial interests. US intelligence services did not do much good vis-a-vis Islamic terrorists, but have done a bang-up job of alienating heretofore cooperative nations, provoking competitor nations, and usurping the basic rights of American citizens.
If they ever trusted Obama, they are foolish. If they thought that the US having this petulant brat in the White House would curb high tech exploitation from our intelligence services, they haven’t paid attention to the whole antichrist thing, or caught the drift of Orwell.
“May you live in interesting times!”
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