Here, in part, is how I pooh-poohed – in “I Spy, You Spy, We All Spy,” July 2, 2013 – the moral indignation Germans (and other Europeans) hurled at the Americans after Snowden’s leaks revealed that the NSA routinely spied on them, including Chancellor Angela Merkel:
The Europeans are ‘shocked, shocked,’ and are expressing feelings of profound betrayal:
‘The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and French president, François Hollande, demanded quick explanations from Washington about disclosures by the Guardian and Der Spiegel that U.S. agencies bugged European embassies and parliament buildings. Berlin stressed there had to be mutual trust if trade talks were to go ahead in Washington on Monday.’
The Americans are wiping egg off their faces, but do not seem too worried. Indeed, no less a person than President Obama dismissed European outrage as little more than the pot calling the kettle black…
Truth be told, except for stoking idle anti-Americanism in some European countries, I am convinced that these disclosures will have no material impact on U.S.-EU relations. Not least because Europeans threatening to abandon bilateral trade agreements with the United States over spying is even less credible than the United States threatening to do the same with China over human rights.
Well, now comes the inevitable hoisting of the high-minded Germans by their own petard, and I hope they’ll forgive the universal schadenfreude it excites:
The German government faced an angry reaction from Turkey and accusations of hypocrisy from its own opposition on Monday after media reports that its intelligence agency [the BND] spied on its NATO ally.
The reports also said the agency had listened to the phone calls of two U.S. secretaries of state – the kind of activity for which Chancellor Angela Merkel has criticised Washington.
Turkey summoned the German ambassador and called for a full explanation following a Spiegel magazine report that the BND foreign intelligence agency had been spying on Turkey for years and identified Ankara as a top surveillance target in an internal government document from 2009.
(Reuters, August 18, 2014)
Of course, this comeuppance will not be complete until revelations show that the BND also spies on Germans every bit as much as the NSA spies on Americans (i.e., pursuant to my anti-Snowden declaration, “I spy, you spy, we all spy”). But it’s only a matter of time — given this disarming admission by the former French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, which duly affirmed my declaration:
Let’s be honest, we eavesdrop too. Everyone is listening to everyone else. But we don’t have the same means as the United States, which makes us jealous.
(The Telegraph, October 27, 2013)
Enough said? Because you don’t want me to get started on all of the pro-Snowden nincompoops railing against the NSA for spying to keep them safe, while uttering nary a word against companies like Google and Facebook for even more pervasive spying … just to sell them stuff.
Related commentaries:
I spy…
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