Public flogging for US with German wet noodle. Snowden's fault.
Germany ends Cold War spying pact with US, Britain
AP, 2 August 2013
Germany canceled a Cold War-era surveillance pact with the United States and Britain on Friday in response to revelations by National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden about those countries' alleged electronic eavesdropping operations.
The move appeared largely symbolic, designed to show that the German government was taking action to stop unwarranted surveillance directed against its citizens without actually jeopardizing relations with Washington and London. With weeks to go before national elections, opposition parties had seized on Snowden's claim that Germany was complicit in the NSA's intelligence-gathering operations.
Phi Beta Iota: The other shoe has not dropped yet. Eventually various parliaments will investigate and discover that the Americans have been funding major covert and clandestine projects, essentially “hiring” the secret services of other countries with off-budget funds not being declared to the indigenous government's political oversight system, all doing things that have not been approved by their parliaments. The big story is not Snowden, or even intelligence collaboration. The big story is how much of the European secret world has been bought and paid for by the US secret world, without the US Congress or the European parliaments having a clue.
