Snowdon is a dummy

@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

Frank Apisa wrote:
Let me ask a question that might lead to an actual answer to the previous question though:

Do your laws require that your intelligence community spy ONLY on people they know intend to harm?

They have a legal framework - and can only work due to that (watched by the parliamentary committee).

I think, Frank, you really don't get what happened here twice in Germany's past.
WE DON'T WANT THOSE TIMES BACK.

I DO get it, Walter...and anyone else who lived through those days GETS it!

Most of us outside Germany want even more than you...not to see you folk "get those times back."

But you keep avoiding the question...two of them now that put this thing into a perspective that is unavoidable. Answer either of them:

Should intelligence agencies spy only on people they know mean harm?

Do your laws require that your intelligence community spy ONLY on people they know intend to harm?

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

Frank Apisa wrote:

Should intelligence agencies spy only on people they know mean harm?

Do your laws require that your intelligence community spy ONLY on people they know intend to harm?

Actually that isn't the question. (But I'm sure that they spy on others that don't harm us now but might intend to do so.)

Until now, they aren't allowed to spy on friends/allies, besides, when ordered/allowed to do so by the government with consent of the parliamentary committee.

Edit: German Laws governing Parliamentary Control of Intelligence Activities

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

Frank Apisa wrote:
Should intelligence agencies spy only on people they know mean harm?

Do your laws require that your intelligence community spy ONLY on people they know intend to harm?

Actually that isn't the question. (But I'm sure that they spy on others that don't harm us now but might intend to do so.)

Well it certainly is MY question...and a VERY important question at that. The implications of the answers are, I think, the reason you are avoiding them.

And you still avoided them...because you answer a different question when you used "...that don't harm us now but might intend to do so."

Quote:

Until now, they aren't allowed to spy on friends/allies, besides, when ordered/allowed to do so by the government with consent of the parliamentary committee.

Yeah...neither were our intelligence agencies...and I suppose most of the intelligence agencies of the world.

But it happens!

And if you are advocating for a discipline that essentially says: "Even if we have the capability to check out things that MIGHT help us...we should not do so if the people are considered allies, because that would be rude"...

...then I oppose your position with every fiber in my body.

That, as you undoubtedly realize, was the point of my question (both of them).

If America intelligence has the capability to extract information from allied countries that aid it in security measures...I would expect them to use that capability! I would, in fact, demand that they use it.

And I would suggest the German people (and all other countries) do the same with their intelligence agencies, because with all the respect in the world, Walter, it is a position that makes more sense than the one you advocate.

2 Replies

@Frank Apisa,

I have a different opinion. If something like you say happened here, a lot of heads will roll.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

I'd ask you the same question I have asked of so many American on the Snowden issue:

I'm surprised that "so many Americans" allow Apisa to get near enough to moider them with his idiotic questions.

When intelligence agencies turn their attention to their own citizens without due cause it is not long before they fly up their own arses and have to be rescued.

Congress is discredited when it can be lied to with impunity.

I assume that's what Apisa wants for the USA.

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@Olivier5,

I'll check that out (have to be in the mood, so not quite yet).

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@Walter Hinteler,

Meanwhile, there's an report in English @ dw online.

Quote:

Germany is debating plans to expand its counter-espionage personnel and conduct "foundational monitoring" of the embassies of such nations as the United States and Britain, Spiegel said in its report on Sunday.

The operations would include the tracking of US agents operating under diplomatic cover on German soil, the report said.

The alleged plans come in the wake of revelations since June that the US National Security Agency (NSA) had carried out massive electronic surveillance in Germany, including monitoring a non-government mobile phone used by Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The head of the German domestic intelligence service, the BfV, Hans-Georg Maassen, had already suggested last year that Germany might be considering enlarging its counter-espionage operations in light of the revelations.
[...]
Spiegel said Merkel's office, the Interior Minstry and Foreign Ministry would all have to agree to give the green light to the enhanced counter-intelligence measures.
[...]
Germany already closely monitors intelligence operations by China, Russia and North Korea, but has in the past exempted those of its own allies from any surveillance.
[...]
The magazine said Germany's other main counter-espionage agency, the joint armed forces intelligence service MAD, was also reviewing whether it, too, should subject allies' intelligence operations to increased scrutiny.

1 Reply

@spendius,

Spendi: Congress is discredited when it can be lied to with impunity.
----------

That's either deep tongue in cheek or you aren't familiar with USA history, Spendi.

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@spendius,

What NSA is doing is similar as if a wife or a husband would use family funds to spy on the other partner even when there is zero reason to assume that the partner is doing anything wrong.

It is a complete break in the truth level that the government and the people should have with each other beside the constitutional questions.

1 Reply

@spendius,

I haven't seen it since I'm still busy reading my weekly nyer magazine - and I don't catch all the blogs on the online nyer right away.

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@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

What NSA is doing is similar as if a wife or a husband would use family funds to spy on the other partner even when there is zero reason to assume that the partner is doing anything wrong.

To call that comparison ridiculous...would be an insult to other ridiculous comparisons that deserve that much respect.

Quote:

It is a complete break in the truth level that the government and the people should have with each other beside the constitutional questions.

That sentence doesn't make any sense, but whatever you were almost saying makes even less.

You still seem to be advocating intelligence monitoring ONLY on people who intend you harm...which, of course, makes no sense.

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

And it was only yesterday that Apisa took time to remind us all of the thread topic. And here he is again worrying a rag doll with simplistic question nobody here is qualified to answer as if the stupid ****** has discovered the Holy Grail.

To anyone who doesn't reverence a written constitution, such as myself, Eddie is obviously a dummy for allowing all the bullshit about the Constitution to overwhelm his emotions and self-interest, which was previously such as not to be sneezed at.

To anyone who does revere the Constitution he must be a hero even if they think his throwing himself on the pyre was a bit over the top and not something they would be prepared to do themselves.

Jesus went into bat for the poor and powerless because none of them had his amount of daring to go up against the rich and powerful.

And Apisa's on the front row chanting "Crucify him". And Lo and Behold here he is, skint, a mere 2000 years later, not only with all the comforts and pleasures New Jersey can provide for such persons but with millions making a considerable effort to increase them to avoid him becoming impatient for more.

And all comparable situations in which the intelligence agencies have systematically spied on their own people saw comforts and pleasures declining until there were not many left. And hardly a pinch of morale.

It took a truly statesmanlike courage to rescue East Germany by allowing the separate currencies to merge on an equal footing. And the army shelled the Parliament building in Russia to start the correction. With most of the members inside it.

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@Frank Apisa,

I'm not making this about you, I couldn't care less frankly. YOU have consistently tried to make this a personal issue with each and every of your opponents, pulling out your cheap Dr Freud act, including with me... You have contributed nothing of value to this thread, just innuendos and insults about what motivates people to say what they want to say. Forget about guessing the posters' motivations and address the issues -- and then maybe you'll look like a half-decent poster.

2 Replies

@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

I'm not making this about you, I couldn't care less frankly.

You sure spend lots of time talking about how wrong I am in my opinions for a guy who could care less!

As for me...I care a lot!

Quote:

YOU have consistently tried to make this a personal issue with each and every of your opponents, pulling out your cheap Dr Freud act, including with me...

No, I do not. But you are attempting to do that with me. I haven't seen you make any comments about Snowden or the issue in quite a while...while I have addressed the topic often...and would like to stay on it.

Quote:

You have contributed nothing of value to this thread, just innuendos and insults about what motivates people to say what they want to say.

You are certainly entitled to that opinion, Olivier, but as far as I am concerned, for you to characterize my opinions as "nothing of value"...just indicates a closed mind on your part.

Quote:

Forget about guessing the posters' motivations and address the issues -- and then maybe you'll look like a half-decent poster.

I already look like a fine poster...and have for some time. Why don't you start addressing the topic...rather than indulging in your obsession with me?

3 Replies

@Frank Apisa,

Olivier said--"YOU have consistently tried to make this a personal issue with each and every of your opponents, pulling out your cheap Dr Freud act, including with me... "

To which Apisa replied--"No, I do not". And he did it with me. I wouldn't say constantly but with a regularity which astounded me. As he still does when he does it to those he has no answer to.

He reminds us of the thread title and then goes off on some extraneous issue.

I think he must have a screw come loose somewhere.

0 Replies

@Frank Apisa,

Bill: It is a complete break in the truth level that the government and the people should have with each other beside the constitutional questions.

Frank: That sentence doesn't make any sense, but whatever you were almost saying makes even less.
----

Frank gets in his woefully ignorant cheap shot and in the same sentence admits he knows Bill's meaning. Even the top English student in a grade four class could understand.

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@Frank Apisa,

Frank: You sure spend lots of time talking about how wrong I am in my opinions for a guy who could care less!

------------------

That one will go right into Kicky's could care less thread. Where is that ignorant language putz but otherwise pretty smart fella.

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@Walter Hinteler,

I know, Frank, it's stupid to think, our secret services wouldn't do it already - but here's a report by the Independent

Quote:

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has announced plans to set up a European communications network as part of a broad counter-espionage offensive designed to curb mass surveillance conducted by the US National Security Agency and its British counterpart, GCHQ.

The move is her government’s first tangible response to public and political indignation over NSA and GCHQ spying in Europe, which was exposed last October with revelations that the US had bugged Ms Merkel’s mobile phone and that MI6 operated a listening post from the British Embassy in Berlin.
[...]
French government officials responded by saying Paris intended to “take up” the German initiative.

Ms Merkel’s proposals appear to be part of a wider German counter-espionage offensive, reported to be under way in several of Germany’s intelligence agencies, against NSA and GCHQ surveillance.
... ... ...

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@Olivier5,

Yea, according to Frank we're all America haters. Such a broad brush that he paints with! TNCFS

2 Replies

@cicerone imposter,

I don't hate America.ns.

0 Replies

Snowdon is a dummy

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