NEW VIDEO IN ENGLISH: Glenn Greenwald:
"To watch the same very people who have benefited so much from the sacrifice of Edward Snowden,
namely German politicians, be unwilling to risk anything in order to do
for him what he did for them, which is to protect his political rights
from persecution has been, I think, not just surprising but kind of
horrible to watch. I actually do not think that the German government
would have to risk all that much if it were to give asylum to Snowden
but what we saw even in the investigation that the German Parliament
pretended to do was that they weren’t willing to risk anything, even
bring Edward Snowden to Germany just to interview him or to question him
if it meant alienating the United States or angering the United States
in any way. So I think the investigation here, the attempts to find out
what the NSA was really doing were more symbolic than they were
genuine.”
In this video Actvism Munich asks Glenn Greenwald
at a press conference in Munich about Germany’s political reaction
towards Edward Snowden’s revelations and whether it sufficed to bring
about meaningful change. Greenwald also provides his opinion about
previous programs that were implemented after World War II which were
targeted at the civilian population that include: FBI’s COINTELPRO &
CIA’s CHAOS operations.
Historical Summary: Germany NSA Scandal
Although the US long considers Germany as an “indispensable” and
“valuable” ally within NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), the
highly classified documents made public by Glenn Greenwald & Edward
Snowden in 2013 reveal that the NSA collects more data from Germany in
contrast to any of the other 27 European Union (EU) member states. Bulk
surveillance and collection is not only targeted at the German
population, where around 500 million Meta-Data connections are collected
(normal days for up to 20 million telephone calls and 10 million
Internet data exchanges) but also at high level politicians such as the
current chancellor, Angela Merkel (CDU), whose phone was tapped by the
US agency.
More recently in April, 2015, Wikileaks released
documents that exposed how the German BND assisted the spying operation
of the NSA aimed at European firms and officials. In July, 2015, the
whistleblowing website also exposed how the NSA tapped the phones of the
political offices of the last three German chancellors – Angela Merkel
(2005-Present), Gerhard Schröder (in office 1998–2002) and Helmut Kohl
(chancellor from 1982 to 1998).
at a press conference in Munich about Germany’s political reaction
towards Edward Snowden’s revelations and whether it sufficed to bring
about meaningful change. Greenwald also provides his opinion about
previous programs that were implemented after World War II which were
targeted at the civilian population that include: FBI’s COINTELPRO &
CIA’s CHAOS operations.
Historical Summary: Germany NSA Scandal
Although the US long considers Germany as an “indispensable” and
“valuable” ally within NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), the
highly classified documents made public by Glenn Greenwald & Edward
Snowden in 2013 reveal that the NSA collects more data from Germany in
contrast to any of the other 27 European Union (EU) member states. Bulk
surveillance and collection is not only targeted at the German
population, where around 500 million Meta-Data connections are collected
(normal days for up to 20 million telephone calls and 10 million
Internet data exchanges) but also at high level politicians such as the
current chancellor, Angela Merkel (CDU), whose phone was tapped by the
US agency.
More recently in April, 2015, Wikileaks released
documents that exposed how the German BND assisted the spying operation
of the NSA aimed at European firms and officials. In July, 2015, the
whistleblowing website also exposed how the NSA tapped the phones of the
political offices of the last three German chancellors – Angela Merkel
(2005-Present), Gerhard Schröder (in office 1998–2002) and Helmut Kohl
(chancellor from 1982 to 1998).
