In Israel, the headlines call Edward J. Snowden “the American Vanunu,” which perhaps sounds like an island nation in the South Pacific. Mordechai Vanunu is the Israeli man who in 1986 left his job at the nuclear power complex, carrying with him photographs and papers indicating something that up to that point had been widely rumored but never proved: that Israel possesses nuclear weapons.

Like Snowden, Vanunu left his home country before sharing his cache of documents with a British newspaper.

Unlike Snowden, he did not then remain spectacularly at large.

Even before the London Sunday Times got its story (“Revealed: The secrets of Israel’s nuclear arsenal”) into print, Israeli intelligence had lured Vanunu to a Rome apartment where Mossad agents overpowered him, injected him with a paralyzing drug and carried him to a beach in an embassy van disguised as an ambulance. A waiting speedboat shuttled him to an Israeli naval vessel disguised as a merchant ship, anchored just inside international waters. The day after publication he arrived in Israel, where he served 18 years in prison, and still is not allowed to talk to foreigners.

Read more: http://world.time.com/2013/06/25/israeli-security-officials-ponder-u-s-s-snowden-saga-it-was-not-a-surprise/#ixzz2XJCvMtv2

Hello hello, It is time to revisit what i posted a few years ago under double cross system...

Mordechai Vanunu
For a while I thought that Vanunu had been a Mossad agent whose main purpose had been to disseminate in a clever way the concept not denied nor confirmed that Israel had nuclear weapons. At the time, it seems highly profitable for Israel to remind the world about its possession of nukes or not, as an issue of international importance, without threats.

Its need was to rekindle subtle unsure fear in the mind of potential enemies still haggling annoyingly with tired weapons from the 1970s and earlier. But then after analysis of Vanunu's past and record, I am not so sure if he was Mossad... Either way, he played a part, willingly or not, in the uncertainty/certainty dichotomy of the existence of the Israeli nukes.

Mossad would have seen Vanunu as a pigeon to be plucked, or Vanunu was part of the sting by playing a double game from the start. I now believe Mossad spotted their pigeon... But in the long run it's only important to Vanunu himself, not to the information magnitude.

So from then on, I will take it as if Vanunu was an innocent bystander. 
In this affair, Mossad had to know that Vanunu — who had been, and still was, a strong voice against Israel's behaviour towards it's neighbours and the Palestinians — was working in one of the most sensitive sector of Israel's dirty secrets. Had Mossad acted as they usually do, Vanunu would have joined the ranks of fruit pickers in a kibbutz somewhere, after having been "dismissed" for something like poor performance or, better still, sexual harassment or simple culling of the workforce.... No... 

So despite his very public protests bagging Israel, Vanunu was employed for more than ten years as a lab technician in the secret nuke factory. A very fishy conflict of existence. Thus I believe Vanunu was being monitored closely. Signing documents not to "reveal" secrets would be like an invitation to do the opposite to anyone inclined to revolt, thus Vanunu. The Israelis had to know that... 

Let's accept Vanunu was battling his conscience between his beliefs and his duty, when he left his employment after taking some "revealing" pictures (they did not reveal much)... But the truth is he was "fired" from his job. From then on, it would have been a matter for Mossad to know when Vanunu was going to crack, because when one is fired, one is usually not "happy". Vanunu went through Asia, searching for enlightenment (considering conversion to Buddhism) and landed in Australia. 

There in Sydney's infamous King's Cross, Vanunu, a Moroccan Jew, converted to Anglicanism... Hum... And I believe in tall fairies... He started to show his pictures of the Israeli nuke installations to some of the parishioners (I knew one of the people who saw them AND told me at that time, before even the whole thing blew up)... In King's Cross, he met with a journalist (Peter Hounam) from the pommy paper "Sunday Times" then quickly eloped to the UK to spill the beans on a grand scale. I believe there was two seats for Mossad agents on that plane. Obviously, the SMH was too small a provincial potato to give an exclusive on the nukes to be denied or not.

But the Sunday Times was taking too long to check and counter-check the veracity of Vanunu's story (this serious cross-checking would not have alerted Mossad or the Israelis "staff" at the embassy, of course... he-he). Here I smell another rat. Vanunu — having waited about a year to let the world know about the Israeli nukes — was becoming so impatient he went to another paper within days, The Daily Mirror, and told his same story once more...

And a few days after that, this good Jewish-Anglican Vanunu became suddenly in love with a woman (an American Mossad agent, Cheryl) and within two days was flying to Rome on a "romantic" holiday — abandoning his quest to let the world know about the peril it faced: the secret Israeli nukes pointing somewhere... Ah women...

Once in Italy, Vanunu was "abducted by Mossad agents, drugged then shipped to Israel where he was put on trial for treason and espionage."

So, only FIVE DAYS after Vanunu had fallen in love, TWO DAYS or so after Vanunu had been abducted back to Israel (no one knew or cared were he was then), the Times published the information Vanunu had revealed... which was not much.

Magic. The cat was in the bag. All the Israeli government had to do was not to deny nor confirm the information, thus the world guessed the information was correct but not proven, because Vanunu's pictures were "inconclusive" and the story came only from one source — a low paid worker without access to anything and who had not been very bright thus had been "fired" (after 10 years???). 

Bingo. Enough had been revealed to frighten the pants out the Arabs, without saying anything concrete...

Of course Vanunu's trial was held in secret but "miraculously" he managed to place his hands on the window of the van he was transported in. On his hands were written the "details of his abduction" so journalists could get the info. The god of the Anglican Buddhists was on his side. And that of the journos...

What followed was Vanunu's imprisonment, release 11 years later, re-arrest for talking to the press etc... etc... 

Either Vanunu was a pigeon who thought he was a clever duck, either Vanunu was a Mossad agent who played his assigned role very well... Either way, I believe Mossad could have put the lid on his "revelations" at any Anglican/Buddhist temple of its choosing... But Mossad waited till they knew "Vanunu's information" was going to be published to make a move on Vanunu. Not a minute earlier...

That is a double-cross. My opinion...

Overzealous data collectors in the US and Great Britain have no right to investigate German citizens. The German government must protect people from unauthorized access by foreign intelligence agencies, and it must act now. This is a matter of national security.

"Germany's security is also being defended in the Hindu Kush, too," Peter Struck, who was Germany's defense minister at the time, said in 2002. If that's true, then the government should also be expected to defend the security of its people at their own doorstep. Because the massive sniffing out and saving of data of all kinds -- that of citizens and businesses, newspapers, political parties, government agencies -- is in the end just that: a question of security. It is about the principles of the rule of law. And it is a matter of national security.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/jakob-augstein-data-spying-programs-threaten-german-security-a-907577.html

Of the many regions that have passed regulations, the European Union stands out for its overarching and comprehensive approach. The 27-country EU directive, passed in 1995, restricts the use, sharing, storing and collecting of personal data. This holistic view of personal data, defined as anything that can identify an individual — including a person’s address and their image — is seen as the gold standard for many countries. It differs  from the patchwork laws in the US and some other countries.

“The EU has strong standards and enforcement,” said Daniel Cooper, a partner at the London office of Covington & Burling. “And the rest of the world is playing catch up.”

Billions of consumer data bytes are spewed through smart phones, video cameras and social media every day. The amount of data is so vast that terra bytes have morphed into zeta bytes, which is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes (that’s 21 zeros, if you are counting). Several US firms like EMC Corp and IBM Corp are eyeing big profits from analyzing and storing this new digital gold because it can more easily predict buying behaviour.

This flood of data about individuals, from the last website someone visited to the phone numbers people call to even more personal information, has worried regulators around the globe.

http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20130625-your-private-data-is-showing

Her opponent, Peer Steinbrück, of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), has lauded the "strong country" whose merits range from the traditional "social partnership" between German employers and employees to the "excellent university research landscape."

Of course there are also a few differences between the candidates, primarily when it comes to social justice. Steinbrück wants to raise taxes for the wealthy, while Merkel would like to increase pensions for retired mothers. But anyone who compares the speeches of the two top candidates is reminded of an upbeat campaign slogan from the 1980s: "Way to go, Germany!"

The chancellor and her main challenger are painting a reassuring but misleading image of the country, however. For quite some time now, Germans have suspected there is little reason for complacency. Anyone who travels through the country will notice roads full of potholes, disused railway tracks and dilapidated schools. And anyone who works for one of the country's large industrial companies also knows that most new production plants are built abroad, not in Germany.

Now, economists have translated Germany's deficiencies into hard numbers. The German Institute of Economic Research (DIW) is presenting a study this week that proves Germany is not Europe's economic hegemon, as British weekly The Economist recently suggested on its cover. Instead, the DIW paints the picture of an ailing economy that has been seriously out of balance for years.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/diw-weak-infrastructure-investment-threatens-german-future-a-907885.html

Germany's Der Spiegel magazine says it has seen a secret document showing the US has bugged EU offices in Washington and at UN headquarters in New York.

The paper says it was shown the 2010 "top secret" document by fugitive ex-security analyst Edward Snowden.

The US National Security Agency document allegedly outlined how it spied on EU internal computer networks, referring to the bloc as a "target".

An EU official said the claim could have a "severe impact" on EU-US ties.

"On behalf of the European Parliament, I demand full clarification and require further information speedily from the US authorities with regard to these allegations," Martin Schulz, the President of the European Parliament said in a statement, according to Reuters news agency.

The US has so far made no public comments on the Spiegel's claim.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23116055

Germany’s Federal Prosecutor’s office said it was preparing to bring charges against British and US intelligence today amid fresh allegations that the services spied far more extensively than thought on German phone and internet traffic and bugged European Union offices in  America.

A report alleging a major and continuous US National Security Agency spying operation in Germany was published by Der Spiegel magazine today, prompting outrage from Berlin MPs still reeling from reports about extensive British surveillance in their country. The German Justice Minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenburger, demanded an immediate explanation and said the behaviour of the intelligence services was “reminiscent of the actions against enemies during the Cold War”. “It defies belief that our friends in the US see the Europeans as their enemies,” she said.

The leak, which Der Spiegel said came from fugitive ex-CIA analyst Edward Snowden, claimed that the NSA tapped into half a billion German phone calls, emails and SMS messages each month. Reports last week revealed extensive tapping of German phone and internet traffic by British intelligence under its so-called Tempora programme. The information was said to be shared with the NSA.

A spokesman for the Federal Prosecutor said the office was preparing to bring charges against “persons unknown” in relation to the reports.

There was also widespread and mounting anger at official European Union level yesterday following disclosures that the NSA had spied on EU computer networks at its offices in New York and Washington and that it had also bugged the premises. Martin Schulz, head of the European Parliament, demanded “full clarification” from the US and said that if the disclosures proved true they would have a severe impact on US-EU ties.

Bundesnachrichtendienst

A big word for spying agency, in German... 

----------------------

Public outcry has emerged over British and American monitoring of global communications. But the German government has so far been reserved in its criticism, partly because the country receives data from such monitoring.

"The topic of commensurability is important" in any imperative to gather information - that was the extent of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's criticism with regard to the Prism spying program during US President Barack Obama's visit to Berlin last week.

Merkel has reason to limit her criticism on the topic. Although the fact that large parts of Internet communication are being monitored was known necessarily known to the general public, the chancellor was unlikely to have been surprised.

German spies have also been sniffing around online - and on a large scale, not just in cases of concrete suspicion. The German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) is legally allowed to rifle through up to 20 percent of the communication between Germany and other countries, and monitor certain Internet search terms.

http://www.dw.de/germany-also-profits-from-us-british-spying/a-16916837

Mind you, the Bundesnachrichtendienst  may get info from the yanks but I would bet it would be incomplete, second rate and basically useless unless it could profit the Americans.....

Germany's standard dictionary has included a vulgar English term, used by Chancellor Angela Merkel among others, as an acceptable German word.

Duden, the equivalent of the Oxford English Dictionary in the UK, said it was reflecting the common use of the word "shitstorm" among Germans.

The word, which is used in German to denote a public outcry, seems to have caught on during the eurozone crisis.

German language experts voted it "Anglicism of the year" in 2012.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23142660

Gus: ScheißeSturm does not have the same academic impact nor the same exotic linguistic damage to it...

The question on the minds of many Germans: Is the chancellor feigning ignorance about US spying in their country?

While the Chancellery appears to be outraged by the NSA's spying tactics in Germany, the opposition doubts the revelations came as a surprise to Angela Merkel. Just how much could she have known?

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will have to be pretty clear with US President Barack Obama the next time she has him on the line. At least that's a reasonable assumption, based on the anger she has expressed about American spying operations in the European Union and Germany.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/how-much-did-merkel-know-about-nsa-spying-in-germany-a-909174.html

Meanwhile Snowden is in transit in Россия...

http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/photo-gallery-atlas-of-prejudices-fotostrecke-98525-10.html

Ten: L'Europa Berlusconiana ostensibly embodies the world view of Italy's former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. With a few exceptions -- fish, short men, the queen -- it's a conception of the world that seems somehow... fixated.

Look at the other maps too... one to nine... This is an essay on prejudices and illusions...

Nine: Europeans penis sizes

Eight: gay men view of Europe

Seven: evil Europe according to the Brits

Six: Napoleon's dream...

Five: 2022

Four: Greek's view of work...

Three: Olé

Two: Polished 

One: Sour Krauts... 

Edward Snowden: the boundless power of the secret NSA

The sore point for European governments now is it was okay for the NSA to spy on European citizens, but the NSA has crossed the line by:

SPYING ON EUROPEANS GOVERNMENTS

and

indulged in industrial espionage...