Germans Hail Snowden as NSA Evokes Stasi Seizing Lives of Others

[xchrom]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-10/germans-hail-snowden-as-nsa-evokes-stasi-seizing-lives-of-others.html


Activists of the organization Campact demonstrate in front of the German Chancellery in support of fugitive U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden in Berlin on July 4, 2013.

Willi Kuhlmann remembers the day the Berlin Wall was erected on Aug. 13, 1961, and how the system of spying on East German citizens by secret police known as the Stasi intensified.

His experience as a border guard along the Wall that divided Germany’s capital city for 28 years makes him mistrustful of the data-gathering carried out by the U.S. National Security Agency, revealed in a series of disclosures to publications including Germany’s Der Spiegel by fugitive Edward Snowden in recent weeks.

Kuhlmann, a 77-year-old retired forester, is among ordinary Germans who draw parallels between the NSA’s activities and the surveillance carried out by the Stasi. One in two of the country’s citizens regard Snowden as a hero, according to a June 29 survey of 504 people by Emnid for Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

“You don’t spy like that on your friends,” said Kuhlmann in a telephone interview.

[Warren Stupidity]

1. That is so over the top comparing our national security state to the Stasi.

And what would Germans know about this sort of stuff anyway?

The Stasi State 2.0 Makes Us Safer.

I invoke Godwin, or Poe, or fuck it, All Former East Germans Under The Bus, Right Fucking Now!

[xchrom]

2. we're gonna need more busses. nt

[Savannahmann]

3. What was the line from Jaws?

Paraphrased of course. We're gonna need a bigger bus.

[xchrom]

4. exactly...

[Waiting For Everyman]

5. I remember when the wall went up.

And there's something we should probably keep in mind about it... it was sprung on the public very suddenly, and it was in place very fast.

[Laelth]

6. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[woo me with science]

7. K&R