"Germany fears NSA stole industrial secrets"

[WhiskeyGirl]

The NSA espionage scandal has unsettled German companies. They are concerned that industrial secrets may have been stolen by US intelligence agencies.

Trust between Washington and Berlin has been shaken by the scandal over the alleged bugging of German government and EU buildings by US intelligence agencies. Reacting angrily to the apparent widespread surveillance of telephone and email communications, German politicians have demanded a speedy explanation from Washington. The EU and Germany do, after all, see themselves as partners of the US.

While the outrage may be exaggerated, there are legitimate, unanswered questions. For example: Why is the National Security Agency (NSA) collecting such large amounts of data, and for what end is that data being used?
The Trojan horse

The chairman of the conservative Christian Social Union's small business group, Hans Michelbach, sees the surveillance of EU institutions by US intelligence agencies as a cause for alarm.

"The EU is not a supporter of terrorism, but is indeed a strong competitor in the global economy," Michelbach said. He fears that not only European institutions, but also European and German firms may have been spied on, giving the US "dishonest advantages."

read more here - http://www.dw.de/germany-fears-nsa-stole-industrial-secrets/a-16925289

Who controls access to the database?  Access to secrets?  White House?

Why have so many changed their positions in Congress?  Evolved?  Enslaved the American people by increasing debts?  Taxation?  Fees?  Regulation?

Where does it end?

[WhiskeyGirl]

"'We need to protect ourselves from our friends'"

The former German secret service coordinator, Bernd Schmidbauer, says that industrial espionage is going on under the cover of the anti-terror campaign. And Germany is a particularly interesting target.

DW: There's considerable concern about the excessive collection of data by the US secret services. As the former coordinator of the German secret service in the chancellery, are you also concerned?

Bernd Schmidbauer: I'm in two minds about it. Everybody knows what technical possibilities there are today, but: such a monster of data collection, that's something new - the way in which everything has been sucked up by a vacuum cleaner, including private information. That doesn't bode well for the future.

read more here - http://www.dw.de/we-need-to-protect-ourselves-from-our-friends/a-16928080

Hmmm...gigantic sucking up of phone conversations, medical data, texts, chats...

Who has access?  Who decides who has access?  How many millions work with all these secrets?

[WhiskeyGirl]

"'The agency is out of control'"

The US spies with the "eavesdropping equivalent of a nuclear bomb," says US- bestselling author James Bamford - and urges an independent investigation into the intelligence community.

DW: Is Edward Snowden a traitor, a hero or just a whistleblower?

James Bamford: These labels are useless because he keeps moving from one place to another. Basically what he released in the US was an enormous service to the American public, because the public certainly didn't know the government was getting access to all their telephone records on a daily if not a minute-by-minute basis. I've never read where the constitution allows the government access to my private information without any reason. So I consider that a very noble piece of information he gave, it took a lot of courage for him to do that. Where he ends up is still a mystery.

We know from the leaked papers that the NSA is targeting EU institutions, and European governments. What do you know about that?

The US has a dual relationship with these countries. On the one hand, they are partners with many of these counties, especially the UK and Germany. Germany was probably the country the NSA depended on most in terms of eavesdropping; during the Cold War it had more eavesdropping bases in Germany than probably anyplace.

There is a very close relationship between the NSA and the German equivalent. They share a great deal of information - international issues, economic issues, terrorism. But then there is the other side of the coin where the NSA targets information in Germany, it targets average German citizens for no apparent reason. They have enough money to do all this and then there are very few restrictions on the NSA in the United States, there is no bureaucratic protection from the intelligence agencies. If you go to Germany, there's nothing preventing them from eavesdropping.

read more here - http://www.dw.de/the-agency-is-out-of-control/a-16926086

Why don't they find the TRILLIONS missing in the financial collapse of 2008?  Where all the money went? 

Why do they keep promoting failures to government positions?