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In 2013, the United States riled up a lot of people, as Edward Snowden released a bevy of classified NSA documents to the press, which revealed the extent of the spying perpetrated by the NSA and its international contemporaries. However one person it really angered was German chancellor, Angela Merkel, who despite being the head of the German government – and therefore a key ally of the USA – found out that her phone had been tapped by the NSA. Now though, it seems US president Obama has managed to cool the tension between the two countries, as they released a joint statement on the topic of intelligence surveillance.
As usual, the politicians put the scope of the intelligence oversight issue alongside that of terrorism, suggesting that the latter is the more important one to tackle.
“There are still different assessments on individual issues there, but if we look at the sheer dimension of the terrorist threats, we are more than aware of the fact that we need to work together very closely,” Merkel said in a statement (via The Hill).
On discovering her phone had been tapped, Angela Merkel was not pleased
She also praised the Obama administration's spying efforts, suggesting that it provided valuable insight when tackling terrorism: “The institutions of the United States of American have provided us and still continue to provide us with a lot of very important, very significant information that are also important to our security.”
Obama for his part in the announcement, stated that he hoped other country's would continue to trust his and the United States' judgement when it came to the use of spying tools. He also asked the German people, in a presidential manner, to just ‘be cool' sometimes:
“Occasionally, I would like the German people to give us the benefit of the doubt, given our history, as opposed to assuming the worst,” he said.
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KitGuru Says: Clearly the issues between German and the US have been ironed out a little bit, but it doesn't feel like Merkel is entirely happy still. It will be interesting to see if any future Snowden document reveals lead to changes in the relationship once again.
Image source: Philipp
Yeah like “Keep calm and let us spy on you with impunity”
keep bitching when that major act of terrorism isn’t stopped because you feel entitled to keeping you tiny live a secret compared to countless people that have and could be killed….I would rather be safe from acts of terrorism than worry about someone finding out i didn’t pick up mom from the airport or im having an argument with my girlfriend…
keep bitching when that major act of terrorism isn’t stopped because you feel entitled to keeping you tiny live a secret compared to countless people that have and could be killed….I would rather be safe from acts of terrorism than worry about someone finding out i didn’t pick up mom from the airport or im having an argument with my girlfriend…
“Occasionally, I would like the German people to give us the benefit of the doubt, given our history,”
‘Benefit of the doubt’ isn’t given to people who’ve already demonstrated they were untrustworthy.
Sure, if the US had never been caught spying on anyone irresponsibly or illegally, you might expect the international community to be more OK with them passing spying laws and spending significant cash on spying. But giving them the benefit of the doubt went out of the window when it was *proven* that they’ve been unethically, irresponsibly, and illegally (not to mention pointlessly) spying on pretty much everyone in the world.
Spying on Angela Merkel’s phone could not have stopped an act of terrorism. The illegal mass spying that the USA have been engaged in has also not stopped any acts of terrorism. Using the courts and legal process would have led to all of the necessary preventative measures being taken against the threats we’ve seen – there isn’t a single case where that mass surveillance has proven necessary. This is simply a false dilemma: the best situation for the people of the world in general is to condemn and avoid this mass spying *and* tackle the terrorist threat, the two aren’t in any way mutually exclusive.