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

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

Thu, Jun 26th 2014 12:26pm — Mike Masnick

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.

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

16 Comments

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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!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Michael, 26 Jun 2014 @ 1:09pm

Re: Things that are Snowden's fault
Obamacare
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Anonymous Coward, 26 Jun 2014 @ 4:34pm

Finally...
...a COUNTRY hates Verizon as much as its U.S. customers do!
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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.
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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.
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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
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Jun 2014 @ 9:09pm

They are all friends.
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