German Minister Calls Security A 'Super Fundamental Right' That Outranks Privacy; German Press Call Him 'Idiot In Charge'
from the going-down dept
One of the striking features of the Snowden story is that there has been no serious attempt to deny the main claims about massive, global spying. Instead, the fall-back position has become: well, yeah, maybe we did some of that, but look how many lives were saved as a result. For example, the day after the first leaks appeared, it was suggested that PRISM was responsible for stopping a plot to bomb the NYC subways. However, further investigation showed that probably wasn't the case.
Now it seems that Germany is using the same tactic in an attempt to ward off growing domestic criticism -- and encountering the same problem with that attempt to re-frame the narrative, as the Stars and Stripes site reports:
German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich is backing off his earlier assertion that the Obama administration's NSA monitoring of Internet accounts had prevented five terror attacks in Germany, raising questions about other claims concerning the value of the massive monitoring programs revealed by NSA leaker Edward Snowden.
The same article quotes a particularly ridiculous comment made by the same Minister:
Defending NSA practices, Friedrich noted that security is a "super fundamental right." As such it outranks fundamental rights such as privacy. German newspapers were scathing in their assessment, calling Friedrich the "idiot in charge."
As that indicates, at least some in the European press are getting tired of mindless defenses of the spying program -- as well as associated claims about how many lives it has saved.
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Filed Under: germany, hans-peter friedrich, nsa surveillance, security
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Of Course
The reality is that these people engage in doublethink on these issues - and the real imperative is the political need to be seen to be doing somnething (and by the way to provide business for all the companies that make money out of politcians "doing something").
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It's not the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution ... oh wait !!!
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Europeans know the price of overzealous "security". We spent decades fighting against it.
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Re: Of Course
For example the US government are dancing around like mancies to avoid calling what has happened in Egypt a coup because a lot of the bribes... sorry I mean aid... can't legally be sent if it is.
The life lost was never about 'freedom' that was just a nice coat of paint.
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I'd much rather have freedom than faux-security.
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Idiots in charge
America:________________
England:________________
Germany:________________
China:________ __________
Korea:__________________
I was going to go on but realized that pretty much every world leader is an Idiot in Charge. [Sigh]
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Re: Re: Of Course
The point I was making is that they are happy to sacrifice lives in the name of "freedom" when it suits their agenda - and equally happy to sacrifice freedom to "save lives" when that is more convenient.
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Goddamn Nazis.
PS Don't think I'm being racist because my government is full of em as well.
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History Time
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How so - exactly.
Possibly a review of history is in order here.
Your gov is full of what then ?
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lol
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Re: Re: Re: Of Course
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So, I guess until the corporate/intelligence apparatus decides that the First Amendment is no longer good for profits, Stars and Stripes gets to operate independently. Since we've already seen a couple of the amendments in the Bill of Rights suspended, that might happen sooner rather than later.
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He's Right
For instance, in the modern world there are almost certainly private individuals owning land w/ uranium ore and possessing (via hiring) the rarified but no longer truly heroic expertize to detonate the device. However, there are good reasons we don't have respected political documents and snappy phrases reminding us to invade privacy and check up on neighbors. We tend to overdo that anyway and need the opposite warning.
S
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a better term would be 'MIFWIC' with the 'I' being silent (correct me if wrong)
Mother Fucker What's In Charge!
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If a politician talks about something, he has either no idea what he is talking about or he is lying. If both applies, he's a member of the government.
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Re: Of Course
I seem to remember only a couple of centuries ago, some minor western colony of the British Empire yawking on about how the tiddly little rights like speech and privacy were more important than living - some bloke named Henry even had a nifty catchphrase for it...
Oh and around the middle of this century I seem to remember a bunch of western countries getting rather miffed for several years because it was decided that being able to choose not to do funny salutes at a painter with a daft moustache was rather more important than quite a lot of lives...
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It makes lots of Americans cringe, too.
In the US, "rights" are about what the government is prohibited from doing. Security is not a "right" -- it's the job of the government, and as such does not trump any rights at all.
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Re: History Time
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Most Europeans
That and 9/11 blew up what was a national landmark (WTO), and as far as I know, nothing on that level of terrorism has happened over in Europe yet (it'd be the equivalent of someone blowing up Buckingham Palace), which is why Europeans (especially Germans) are more aware of the privacy vs. security problem than Americans today.
Well, that and fucking reality TV.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Of Course
actually, i'm sure you know it goes a step beyond that: we're fighting over there, so the 1% can make obscene profits over here...
really and truly, this has little/nothing to do with 'security' per se, but EVERYTHING to do with protecting the 'right' of 'our' (actually, NOBODY'S) transnational korporations to generate profits unchallenged by gummints or peoples...
yeah, there are a few twue bewievers who do this crap out of a misplaced, misguided 'patriotism', but most are simply fools and tools being led by the nose to peddle this crapola, and not a small percentage who are simply con men and sociopaths taking advantage of the 'security' gravy train...
they are protecting the 'security' of the korporadoes, NOT US 99%...
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof
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The people have a super-fundamental right to make sure you are behaving as they require to feel secure that your the right one to lead.
Still willing to stand by those words?
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too funny :D
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