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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsEx-Stasi Boss Green With Envy Over NSA's Domestic Spy Powers
For Wolfgang Schmidt, who used to head East Germany's feared spy service, the NSA's reported spy program "would have been a dream come true."by Charles Cooper June 28, 2013
For Wolfgang Schmidt, it was just bad luck that he was 20 years too late and living on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain.
--CLIP
As a former top spook in his nation's security bureaucracy, Wolfe also weighed into the domestic debate about whether the NSA has crossed any lines. Privacy advocates have expressed concerns about whether the agency went beyond collecting phone and Internet metadata and snooped on Americans' domestic communications.
For Schmidt, who recalled that during the Trabant era, the Stasi could only tap 40 phones at a time. Reading the seemingly daily disclosures about the NSA, he says there's little doubt about what's going on behind closed doors.
"It is the height of naivete to think that once collected this information won't be used," he said. "This is the nature of secret government organizations. The only way to protect the people's privacy is not to allow the government to collect their information in the first place."
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http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57591551-83/ex-stasi-boss-green-with-envy-over-nsas-domestic-spy-powers/
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Ex-Stasi Boss Green With Envy Over NSA's Domestic Spy Powers (Original Post)
Purveyor
Jul 2013
OP
Be not jealous. In your next life, Wolfie, you will be born an American
kenny blankenship
Jul 2013
#4
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)1. K&R
leveymg
(36,418 posts)2. Do "not allow the government to collect the information in the first place."
Spoken by a man who should know a thing or two about "the nature of secret government organizations."
The Stassi could only bug 40 phones at the same time in the 1980s. Really? Geez, Hoover's FBI did that just in Washington, DC in the 1950s.
sibelian
(7,804 posts)3. Oh, fer heaven's SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE.
What would HE know, the big silly? Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle. Spying's cuddly when Americans do it.
K+R
kenny blankenship
(15,689 posts)4. Be not jealous. In your next life, Wolfie, you will be born an American
and the SuperStasi system will be there, all ready and waiting for you.
KoKo
(84,711 posts)5. K&R...this is important read.......