German Government Drops Verizon Contract Over NSA Spying, But Still Won't Investigate

from the actions-speak-louder-than-political-investigations dept

The German government is ending its contract with Verizon over the quite plausible and reasonable fears that Verizon has been helping the NSA spy on the German government.
"There are indications that Verizon is legally required to provide certain things to the NSA, and that's one of the reasons the cooperation with Verizon won't continue," said [Interior Ministry spokesman Tobias] Plate.
Of course, this is the same German government that has basically blocked any real investigation from happening into the NSA's surveillance of the German people (perhaps because the Germans are complicit in those activities).

Still, this is yet another example of the NSA's activities hurting US business around the globe. But, rather than recognize it's a problem, the NSA and its defenders will keep blaming Ed Snowden.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: contracts, germany, nsa, surveillance
Companies: verizon


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 26 Jun 2014 @ 12:34pm

    The true humor is this!

    Ed Snowden is hated only because it will make governments have to change their dirty diapers. Okay, Verizon did lose some business for it, too bad. The next one to replace them will just do the same, and the government officials will just laugh at the stupid citizens then pray no one else discovers that the replacement is just doing the same dang thing.

    Everyone just seems to forget, its not just the NSA, it is every allied nation with the USA that is enjoying this massive dragnet and they are definitely sharing. Right now it will be just the US businesses getting hurt.

    War is coming, humans absolutely just cannot resist it, especially when governments are drumming up the shit they are these days!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Michael, 26 Jun 2014 @ 1:11pm

      Re: The true humor is this!

      Ed Snowden is hated only because it will make governments have to change their dirty diapers

      Great. He messes up the only thing our governments have been consistently good at recycling.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 26 Jun 2014 @ 12:57pm

    On the plus side, maybe now the telecoms will join the fight more seriously against the NSA. Because now they have actual evidence of the NSA harming their bottom line. And hey, after all their anti-consumer victories it's about time they fight for the consumers on something for once.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      KM, 26 Jun 2014 @ 1:06pm

      Re:

      Yep, I've been hoping the economic impact of things like this and the Boeing Brazil contract will make the difference. Congress heeds their corporate masters.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Rich Kulawiec, 26 Jun 2014 @ 1:05pm

    Things that are Snowden's fault

    Verizon contract drop in Germany
    Terrorist successes
    Global warming
    Kim Kardas...no, ALL the Kardashians
    Heartbleed
    Truecrypt mess
    Target point-of-sale hack
    More terrorist successes
    Bitey soccer players
    Bee colony collapse
    New Jersey bridge lane closings
    Lost IRS email messages
    Still more terrorist successes
    Nicki Minaj
    ISIS military campaign
    DRM in the W3C
    Shaka, when the walls fell
    ED-DRBG backdoor
    Instant replay in MLB
    Yet more terrorist successes
    Mike Rogers' bulging forehead veins
    Ukraine separatist movement
    Transformers XIV
    Kardas...oh, wait, I already listed that one. Never mind.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Roger Strong (profile), 26 Jun 2014 @ 1:09pm

    Again?

    That's like the time US agents kidnapped, sodomized, and drugged a German citizen (Khalid El-Masri) and shipped him to Afghanistan for months of torture - then dumped him without papers or money on a back-road in a third country when they realized they had the wrong person.

    The German government cancelled its Expedia contract over that one, but didn't post any one-star "would not use this travel agent again" reviews.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 26 Jun 2014 @ 2:03pm

    in other words, they want to use the spying as an excuse, because it suits, but are afraid of doing the proper thing to follow it up.i guess it may lead to more information coming out as to what their own government is up to!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 26 Jun 2014 @ 2:36pm

    The German Government knows the NSA is spying on their population, because Germany is the largest NSA listening post in all of Europe!

    https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/06/17/germany-nsas-largest-listening-post-europe/

    I applaud Germany for kicking Verizon to the curb. There's no doubt Verizon would spy on the German people, just like they spy on the American people. Verizon is legally bound by US law to hand over all information, in secret, that is requested of them by the US Government.

    The same is true of all US companies. Failure to secretly comply with National Security Letters will end in lengthy prison sentences and fines for any US company who refuses to comply with secret US law.

    It doesn't matter were a US company stores that data. If their data is stored on servers in Europe, Asia, or South America. That data must be retrieved from those servers and handed over to the secret US judicial system upon request.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 26 Jun 2014 @ 3:51pm

      Re:

      "I applaud Germany for kicking Verizon to the curb. There's no doubt Verizon would spy on the German people,"

      You got that wrong. It is absolutly ok to spy on the German people. Otherwise the german Gov wouldn't say that if they took any legal actions or did anything at all against it, it hurt the us-german relationship. The german counterpart to the NSA even intercepted the raw traffic on the biggest internet exchange point and sent it to the NSA until 2007 when they suddenly realized that this might be hard to explain politicly.
      Why they acted in this case is kind of simple and depressing. The goverment used Verizon in some departments and that's why it got canceled. One thing is why didn't they use a german provider or canceld it after the story was released? In my opinion, either they didnt care until the public knew or what is really scary they didnt know they had a contract with Verizon. And second thing that really bothers me is if as they say the whole Snowden stuff is just imagination and there is nothing to it then why cancel it? One would think that now, after they politicly shot themselves in the leg, was the time to say "oh alright, it is all true".
      Politicians in germany atm.... If it wasn't real it would be so funny.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 26 Jun 2014 @ 4:22pm

        Re: Re:

        "The goverment used Verizon in some departments and that's why it got canceled."


        Ah ha! I understand what you're saying. The German government itself was using Verizon's network to handle government communications.

        Now I see why the German government is so concerned about Verizon. They're afraid that government officials are being spied on directly though Verizon.

        Now it all makes sense! This could also explain how the NSA was able to listen in on Angela Merkel's phone calls.

        All the pieces are starting to fall into place.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 26 Jun 2014 @ 4:34pm

    Finally...

    ...a COUNTRY hates Verizon as much as its U.S. customers do!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Pixelation, 26 Jun 2014 @ 9:34pm

    Chink in the armor

    Their corporate overlords are starting to lose business because of the spying. Perhaps now there will be a serious pushback against US government spying.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 26 Jun 2014 @ 11:20pm

    bedfellows

    The German government is so deep in bed with the NSA that this is more of a hollow PR move than anything else. Or maybe protectionism, finding an excuse to kick a non-German competitor out of the country.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Aussie Geoff (profile), 27 Jun 2014 @ 8:19am

    But, of course

    the NSA and its defenders will keep blaming Ed Snowden.

    But of course it is all Snowden's fault! If he hadn't shined the light on the National Spy Agency's hidden dirty laundry, the public would not know about any of this and the spying could carry on as usual

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 28 Jun 2014 @ 9:09pm

    They are all friends.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.