As a former lord chancellor said the Metropolitan police had no legal right to detain the partner of a Guardian journalist at Heathrow airport under anti-terror laws, the White House suggested it would be inappropriate for US authorities to enter a media organisation's offices to oversee the destruction of hard drives.

The White House – which on Monday distanced Washington from the detention of David Miranda – intervened for the second time in 24 hours after the Guardian revealed that senior Whitehall figures had demanded the destruction or surrender of hard drives containing some of the secret files leaked by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian editor, said that two GCHQ security experts oversaw the destruction of hard drives on 20 July in what he described as a "peculiarly pointless piece of symbolism". Rusbridger had told the authorities that the action would not prevent the Guardian reporting on the leaked US documents because Glenn Greenwald, the reporter who first broke the story, had a copy in Brazil, and a further copy was held in the US.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/20/nsa-david-miranda-guardian-hard-drives

As the election approaches, Chancellor Angela Merkel is working hard to dissipate anger over controversial surveillance by German and US intelligence agencies. But every time Berlin assures voters that all is well, its claims are discredited.

So, all is well? That was at least the opinion of the Frankfurter Allgemeine, a leading conservative newspaper in Germany, which published a commentary announcing that the "German election chapter 'Worldwide Presence of American Intelligence Agencies' has been closed." But a few pages further on in the same edition was an article by German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger that took the opposite position. The minister, who is a member of the business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP), the junior partner in Merkel's ruling coalition, wrote: "An honest response to the question of how involved we are in this surveillance can only be: right in the middle."

Indeed, ever since Snowden leaked the first classified documents early last June, the true extent of US data surveillance has remained unclear. Hardly any of the allegations have been credibly refuted -- not even by the Chancellery.

Under the search term "#PofallabeendetDinge" (literally, "#Pofalla puts an end to things"), Tumblr bloggers have been poking fun at the sheer chutzpah of the Merkel aide with quips like "In my view, Schubert's 8th Symphony is now over." They have a point: It's certainly not every day that the government itself officially lays to rest a political scandal.

Pofalla's defense strategy rests on a shaky foundation: The German government is relying on the solemn statements of British and US intelligence agencies. Yet it has turned a blind eye to the fact that spreading disinformation, maintaining secrets, bending the rules and using lies and deception are as integral to the game of espionage as Parmesan cheese is to spaghetti Bolognese -- even among the intelligence agencies of democratic states.

...

Writing for London's Guardian newspaper, Internet expert Jeff Jarvis, a professor of journalism at City University of New York (CUNY), said that all pertinent communications in the US amount to just 2.9 percent of Internet traffic. This sheds a totally new light on the purportedly small figure of 1.6 percent. It means that the NSA "touches" roughly half of all communications on the Web -- or, as Jarvis writes, "practically everything that matters."

In view of all this, it would be grossly negligent to rely on the NSA as a key source of information. Not much value can arguably be placed on the assurances made by an agency that has demonstrably deceived and lied to the public -- an agency that Senator Wyden accuses of cultivating a "culture of misinformation."

....

It's very possible that Merkel's close aide will then be asked to testify on another related matter. For weeks now, as a direct consequence of the Snowden affair, Chancellor Merkel and Economics Minister Philipp Rösler (FDP) have been calling for Germany and Europe to free themselves from their dependence on the US in the realm of IT technology. The government has issued an official cabinet decision on this issue.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-government-fails-to-get-past-nsa-spying-scandal-a-917314.html

No so strangely, I believe that the Frogs do not have the same problem of prostitution with Washington as the German presently have. Since the early 1950s, the garlic snails have demonstrated their dislike of the Yanks, in various open ways, popularly and governmentally...

But this could be the end of a sore point. The Yanks have played a double game in Europe and the Snowden affair could be the end of this duplicity. If I was a government head in Europe, I'd seize upon this moment to tell the Yanks to gently shove off (with the Brits — unless the Brits give up the Pound Sterling) and consolidate on "Europe being European". Suddenly, the internet could have a new base, say in Luxembourg, Madrid or Strasbourg, and the Chinese could have a centre in one of their new population hubs... And Europe can have a lasting rekindling moment.

The French used to have the Minitel (an internet-like communication tool for which people were given free monitors and access) way before the internet was invented...

Britain runs a secret internet-monitoring station in the Middle East to intercept and process vast quantities of emails, telephone calls and web traffic on behalf of Western intelligence agencies, The Independent has learnt.

The station is able to tap into and extract data from the underwater fibre-optic cables passing through the region.

The information is then processed for intelligence and passed to GCHQ in Cheltenham and shared with the National Security Agency (NSA) in the United States. The Government claims the station is a key element in the West’s “war on terror” and provides a vital “early warning” system for potential attacks around the world.

The Independent is not revealing the precise location of the station but information on its activities was contained in the leaked documents obtained from the NSA by Edward Snowden. The Guardian newspaper’s reporting on these documents in recent months has sparked a dispute with the Government, with GCHQ security experts overseeing the destruction of hard drives containing the data.

The Middle East installation is regarded as particularly valuable by the British and Americans because it can access submarine cables passing through the region. All of the messages and data passed back and forth on the cables is copied into giant computer storage “buffers” and then sifted for data of special interest.

Information about the project was contained in 50,000 GCHQ documents that Mr Snowden downloaded during 2012. Many of them came from an internal Wikipedia-style information site called GC-Wiki. Unlike the public Wikipedia, GCHQ’s wiki was generally classified Top Secret  or above.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-edward-snowden-leaks-reveal-uks-secret-middleeast-internet-surveillance-base-8781082.html

Do you remember a while back (2008) that an "accident" severed a large communication cable in the middle east "under the sea"?.... "Repairs" were made of course... Since then too, a few cables have been cut an repaired... or attempted to be cut... Since these cables are quite numerous in one bunch, repairs has to be done glass-fibre by glass fibre with a junction box... It would not be impossible to have a junction box with a discreet splitter attached to a powerful wireless repeater... But that would be a conspiracy theory...

In the next five years, the BND foreign intelligence service in Germany plans to invest 100 million euros in Internet surveillance, according to the news magazine "Der Spiegel." By the way, every letter in Germany is also photographed and stored for three days. Deutsche Post says, however, that it only stores the recipient's address for internal purposes.

If all these examples of the transatlantic surveillance puzzle are put together, a disturbing image emerges. In many aspects of our daily lives, the presumption of innocence is abandoned. Our telephone calls and Internet activity are being stored without any justifiable reasons, either by the service providers or by the government with the help of these companies or has been made accessible to both. It is this growing cooperation between government agencies and global companies - symbolized in Snowden's work at Booz Allen Hamilton and Dell on behalf of the NSA - that poses a huge threat to our privacy and thus to freedom of expression. Globally operating intelligence agencies and global telecommunication service providers have a common goal - namely, to obtain as much information about people as possible.

Vote with money and ballots

The globalization of surveillance by governments and businesses also explains the reserved policy responses in Europe and the United States to the Snowden revelations. All governments and companies are actively and passively involved. And that's why governments on both sides of the Atlantic want to end this annoying issue once and for all. Among other things, it leads to oddities like the idea of the US-German No Spy Agreement.

Citizens in Germany and elsewhere shouldn't be satisfied with that. Those who really want to turn around this push toward total surveillance should, on one hand, consider the choice of telecommunications service provider and, on the other, vote for real control and oversight of the intelligence services. An ideal opportunity to do so in Germany is right around the corner - the federal elections on September 22.

Michael Knigge is a senior editor in DW's English department.

http://www.dw.de/opinion-a-society-of-total-surveillance/a-17039825

Germans aren't the only ones with interests at stake in next month's election. The US is watching too -- and Washington is hoping that, once the campaign is history, Germany will show more leadership on global issues.

Germans seem to have already made up their mind. With just under a month to go before the general election, Angela Merkel's conservatives are well ahead in the polls and the chancellor herself likewise remains extremely popular. Change, even should she be re-elected for a third term, isn't likely to be forthcoming, pundits say.

Daniel Hamilton, director of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University, calls it the "expectation gap." "I think the assumption Americans have is that Germany should always step up and take responsibility commensurate with its weight in the world," he says. Americans, he suggests, always expect slightly more from Germany than Germany is willing to give.

For the moment, of course, demands from Washington are few and muted. Because it is election season in Germany, US experts say there are a host of issues which have been put on the back burner until after September 22. But once the election is over and a new government is formed, the US will expect Germany to tackle those issues with renewed effort.

"Clearly there are a lot of pent-up issues that will require the attention of the new German government," says Heather Conley, director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The editors of leading European newspapers have written to David Cameron over the detention of the partner of a Guardian journalist.

The detention and subsequent criminal investigation into the partner of aGuardian journalist threatens to undermine the position of the free press around the world, the editors of several northern European newspapershave warned.

In an open letter to David Cameron published in today's Observer, the editors of Denmark's Politiken, Sweden's Dagens Nyheter, Norway's Aftenposten and Finland's Helsingin Sanomat describe the detention ofDavid Miranda, the partner of the Guardian's Glenn Greenwald, as harassment.

They say that the "events in Great Britain over the past week give rise to deep concern" and call on the British prime minister to "reinstall your government among the leading defenders of the free press".

Miranda was detained by the Metropolitan police for nine hours last Sunday as he was passing through Heathrow on his way to Brazil.

Greenwald has broken a series of stories about the US intelligence agencies based on material leaked by the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The editors describe a free press as crucial to holding governments and their intelligence agencies to account. They write: "We are surprised by the recent acts by officials of your government against our colleagues at the Guardian and deeply concerned that a stout defender of democracy and free debate like the United Kingdom uses anti-terror legislation in order to legalise what amounts to harassment of both the paper and individuals associated with it."

They add: "It is deeply disturbing that the police have now announced a criminal investigation" and they warn that "the implication of these acts may have ramifications far beyond the borders of the UK, undermining the position of the free press throughout the world".

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/24/david-miranda-detention-greenwald-press-editors

There is a fine line between the fragile freedom of the press that tells the truth despite pressure from governments and the powerful press freedom to tell porkies — like the Murdoch press does constantly... 

A couple of comments above I say something stupid like:

Do you remember a while back (2008) that an "accident" severed a large communication cable in the middle east "under the sea"?.... "Repairs" were made of course... Since then too, a few cables have been cut an repaired... or attempted to be cut... Since these cables are quite numerous in one bunch, repairs have to be done glass-fibre by glass fibre with a junction box... It would not be impossible to have a junction box with a discreet splitter attached to a powerful wireless repeater... But that would be a conspiracy theory...

Yes, really, I ask you... What a silly Gus... Would it not be better to build the spying devices directly into the system while it's being built?:

UK spy agency GCHQ is facing a legal challenge in the European courts over claims that its mass online surveillance programmes have breached the privacy of tens of millions of people across the UK andEurope.

Three campaign groups – Big Brother Watch, the Open Rights Group and English PEN – together with the German internet activist Constanze Kurz, have filed papers at the European court of human rights alleging that the collection of vast amounts of data, including the content of emails and social media messages, by Britain's spy agencies is illegal.

The move follows revelations by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden that GCHQ has the capacity to collect more than 21 petabytes of data a day – equivalent to sending all the information in all the books in the British Library 192 times every 24 hours.

Daniel Carey, solicitor at Deighton Pierce Glynn, which is taking the case, said: "We are asking the court to declare that unrestrained surveillance of much of Europe's internet communications by the UK government, and the outdated regulatory system that has permitted this, breach our rights to privacy."

Files leaked by Snowden show GCHQ and its American counterpart, the National Security Agency, for which he worked, have developed capabilities to undertake industrial-scale surveillance of the web and mobile phone networks.

This is done by trawling the servers of internet companies and collecting raw data from the undersea cables that carry web traffic.

Two of the programmes, Prism and Tempora, can sweep up vast amounts of private data, which is shared between the two countries.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/03/gchq-legal-challenge-europe-privacy-surveillance

'What the Guardian is doing is important for democracy'

On Thursday the Daily Mail described the Guardian as 'The paper that helps Britain's enemies'. We showed that article to many of the world's leading editors. This is what they said:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/10/guardian-democracy-editors

The phone, internet and email records of UK citizens not suspected of any wrongdoing have been analysed and stored by America's National Security Agency under a secret deal that was approved by British intelligence officials, according to documents from the whistleblower Edward Snowden.

In the first explicit confirmation that UK citizens have been caught up in US mass surveillance programs, an NSA memo describes how in 2007 an agreement was reached that allowed the agency to "unmask" and hold on to personal data about Britons that had previously been off limits.

The memo, published in a joint investigation by the Guardian and Britain's Channel 4 News, says the material is being put in databases where it can be made available to other members of the US intelligence and military community.

Britain and the US are the main two partners in the 'Five-Eyes' intelligence-sharing alliance, which also includes Australia, New Zealandand Canada. Until now, it had been generally understood that the citizens of each country were protected from surveillance by any of the others.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/20/us-uk-secret-deal-surveillance-personal-data

With James Bond 007 in the secret service... nothing can go wrong, can it? See toon at top...

An apparently bugged phone conversation in which a senior US diplomat disparages the EU over the Ukraine crisis has been posted online.

A voice resembling that of Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland refers to the EU using a graphic swear word, in a conversation apparently with to the US ambassador to Ukraine.

The US said Ms Nuland had "apologised for these reported comments".

The EU and US are involved in talks to end months of unrest in Ukraine.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26072281

As you know, I have claimed for some time now, since 1975 in the wilderness and since 2005 on this site, that the Yanks have been trying to stop "Europe from happening"... Should Europe form a sensible geo-political/economic block, it could compete more efficiently on the world markets than the US. It would become the second world power after China. The US since the end of World War II have been trying to stop the alliance of France and Germany. To this end they've used some nifty tactics including giving some gifts or concession to one country and not the other in order to create friction — as well the US has used the Poms and their "English sausage" as an insider and sour-puss in Europe by stopping Britain to join the Eurozone while being in the EU. It's a smart divisive game — and this taped phone conversation shows the amplitude and depth of the deed...

KIEV, Ukraine — The tense Russian-American jockeying over the fate of Ukraine escalated on Thursday as a Kremlin official accused Washington of “crudely interfering” in the former Soviet republic, while the Obama administration blamed Moscow for spreading an intercepted private conversation between two American diplomats.

An audiotape of the conversation appeared on the Internet and opened a window into American handling of the political crisis here, as the two diplomats candidly discussed the composition of a possible new government to replace the pro-Russian cabinet of Ukraine’s president, Viktor F. Yanukovych. It also turned the tables on the Obama administration, which has been under fire lately for spying on foreign leaders.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/07/world/europe/ukraine.html?hp&_r=0

A video, titled the "Marionettes of Maidan" referencing the centre of protests in Kiev, was published on YouTube on February 4th, and shows photos of Nuland and the US ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt.

In the audio, voices resembling those of Nuland and Pyatt discuss
international efforts to resolve Ukraine's ongoing political crisis.

At one point, the Nuland voice colorfully suggests that the EU's position should be ignored.

"F--- the EU," the female voice said.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/02/us-apologises-eu-leaked-barb-2014275452914661.html

PLANS to sell the anonymised personal details of UK taxpayers to private companies have been described as “borderline insane” by a senior Conservative MP and “dangerous” by tax professionals.

HM Revenue and Customs plans to share taxpayer data where there is a public benefit and has been looking at “charging options”, according to The Guardian. Plans to change the laws which prevent HMRC from sharing taxpayers’ details were announced in documents released as part of the autumn statement and Budget, and are being overseen by the Treasury minister David Gauke.

HMRC said that any sharing of data with private companies, researchers and public bodies would be subject to “suitable safeguards” to protect taxpayer confidentiality and would only be allowed where there was a “clear public benefit”.

But the plans have sparked uproar.