Germans Loved Obama. Now We Don’t Trust Him.

[Purveyor]

By MALTE SPITZ
Published: June 29, 2013

BERLIN — IN May 2010, I received a brown envelope. In it was a CD with an encrypted file containing six months of my life. Six months of metadata, stored by my cellphone provider, T-Mobile. This list of metadata contained 35,830 records. That’s 35,830 times my phone company knew if, where and when I was surfing the Web, calling or texting.

The truth is that phone companies have this data on every customer. I got mine because, in 2009, I filed a suit against T-Mobile for the release of all the data on me that had been gathered and stored. The reason this information had been preserved for six months was because of Germany’s implementation of a 2006 European Union directive.

All of this data had to be kept so that law enforcement agencies could gain access to it. That meant that the metadata of 80 million Germans was being stored, without any concrete suspicions and without cause.

This “preventive measure” was met with huge opposition in Germany. Lawyers, journalists, doctors, unions and civil liberties activists started to protest. In 2008, almost 35,000 people signed on to a constitutional challenge to the law. In Berlin, tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest data retention. In the end, the Constitutional Court ruled that the implementation of the European Union directive was, in fact, unconstitutional.

In Germany, whenever the government begins to infringe on individual freedom, society stands up. Given our history, we Germans are not willing to trade in our liberty for potentially better security. Germans have experienced firsthand what happens when the government knows too much about someone. In the past 80 years, Germans have felt the betrayal of neighbors who informed for the Gestapo and the fear that best friends might be potential informants for the Stasi. Homes were tapped. Millions were monitored.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/opinion/sunday/germans-loved-obama-now-we-dont-trust-him.html?hp&_r=0

[Turbineguy]

1. It's working!

[woo me with science]

2. K&R Germany grasps the dangers

because Germany has lived them.

Our country is gravely corrupted. Purchased politicians and elections. Secret trade deals. "Supercommittees." Fake crises. Closed door deals. Attacks on the free press that is our primary check against government abuse. Militarized police. Targeting of whistleblowers and peaceful protesters. Dismantling of the Constitution. All under a common theme of profit for corporations.

And now a surveillance infrastructure whose capabilities dwarf that of any totalitarian state in history.

This may be our last chance to save ourselves. Thank you, Edward Snowden. Keep in mind that states that build surveillance infrastructures also build propaganda infrastructures. We will hear incessant reassurance that everything is all right.

It isn't.

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

3. They are just too paranoid, Washington loves them!

[MannyGoldstein]

4. What do the Germans have to hide?

If they have nothing to hide, they have nothing to fear. Why waste their beautiful minds on worrying, unless there's skeletons in the closet? Or perhaps the worst wurst you'd ever want to eat? Mit rotting grenkohl?

We'll get to the bottom of Germany's dark secret, just you wait and see.

Regards,

Third-Way Manny

[Harmony Blue]

5. Germans are the most progressive

you will find in Europe.

[truebluegreen]

6. Bravo for Germany.

We could do with a lot more healthy skepticism and activism in this country (beyond the outstanding denizens of this board of course).

[leftstreet]

7. DURec

[Fire Walk With Me]

8. "...Germans are not willing to trade in our liberty for potentially better security."

[flpoljunkie]

9. 'Now we are not sure where Mr. Obama stands.'

Neither am I, and it is disconcerting, to say the least.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/opinion/sunday/germans-loved-obama-now-we-dont-trust-him.html?pagewanted=all

[QC]

10. Goddam libertarians!!