Plugging Leaks: Merkel’s War on Germany’s Press and Parliament

Der Spiegel ^ | August 07, 2015 – 08:15 PM | (Spiegel Staff)

[Olog-hai]

In recent months, Germany’s government and intelligence agencies have gone after journalists and parliamentarians in an effort to keep classified information secret. Now, their efforts have resulted in a bona fide scandal for Berlin. […]

In recent days, the chancellor, Justice Minister Heiko Maas and Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière have sanctimoniously thrown their support behind freedom of the press. But reality often looks different. In reality, senior government officials and intelligence agency heads in Germany have long been pursuing a policy of intimidating and deterring journalists and their sources.

Leaks and whistleblowers are being hunted down and criminalized. Treason, a word that had hardly been heard for decades, is once again being used as part of the repertoire of politicians in Berlin—and all in the alleged name of protecting the common good. Security is to be increased in order to better protect the country from terrorism. At the same time, however, the balance between the executive, legislative, judiciary and the press as the Fourth Estate is being thrown off. …

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Before anyone gets all spun up with Spiegel’s comments, stand back and look upon the big picture.

What started the new German massive analysis of internet traffic? At some point, the gov’t drafted up a policy change and put this into documentation to forward around to a couple of key ministers and their interior staffs. Someone took the document, and had frustrations over the policy and decided that they would do a “Snowden” and leak it to a German blogger group.

But ask yourself this question....why did they have to increase analysis? After all the explosive talk in 2014 of NSA connections....did the Germans get cut-off from the intelligence flow and then react the way you’d expect....putting their own program into works? This is likely what created this, but the idiots in the German news media are acting like immature kids and a high-school newspaper...refusing to ask more questions.

So the topic is....how can we burn the political machine (Merkel’s gov’t) right now?

National elections are set for fall of 2017 (two years away). The economy in Germany is running great, unemployment doesn’t look bad, and pension reform is way down on the complaints list.

What ails the voting public right now? Topic number one: immigration and refugee episodes. More than seventy percent of the public will say this. Sadly, the opposition parties of Germany (SPD, Greens, FDP, and Linke Party) all have pro-immigration stances, and this really puts them into a bind.

So, they are inviting this hyped up but non-significant event with the leak, the policy change, and the threat to the press to turn into some big-league affair. Frankly, if you walk around Germany and ask what they think of this (this being vacation season)....less than one percent can explain anything beyond a 3x5 card of info, and they can’t really say how it relates to themselves as a citizen or public member. In a way, it’s comical....but this is now page one on any paper and leads the nightly news as item one or two.

[Olog-hai]

I do not put stock in any defense of the social market economy, with all due respect.

Of course, Der Spiegel, the child of Bertelsmann Media (one-time Hitler propagandists), are no innocents in any of this. But if the claims of cracking down on whistleblowers of all kinds are true, then this is a disturbing trend.

[pepsionice]

The 1960s law only protects journalists. There might be some marginal laws from the 1990s....but I kinda doubt that political figures fall under this group of protected individuals. Course, from last year....I still remember the SPD guy who had massive Meth in his possession and never got a jail sentence, and the SPD guy who had kid-porn on the laptop, and walked away with no jail.

On this episode....no one is asking the right question...what triggered the more intensive analysis by the gov’t on internet traffic. If they answer this...then the logic behind the change might be understandable. The ‘Snowden-defense’ of leaking to do good deeds....only goes so far before people start asking real questions.