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American spies in Germany: The end of trust
http://www.embassynews.ca/columns/2014/07/23/american-spies-in-germany-the-end-of-trust/45833US intelligence agencies are completely out of control, writes Gwynne Dyer.
American spies in Germany: The end of trust
Gwynne Dyer
Published: Wednesday, 07/23/2014 12:00 am EDT
The question to bear in mind, when reading this whole sorry tale, is this: if Americans are, on average, no stupider than Germans, then why are their intelligence services so stupid?
After the most recent revelations about American spying in Germany, there was considerable speculation among members of the Bundestag (parliament) that Germany might “get even” by inviting United States whistleblower Edward Snowden to leave his Moscow exile and come to Berlin instead. But last weekend Chancellor Angela Merkel, at her traditional pre-summer vacation press conference, rained all over that idea.
“We learned things (from Snowden) that we didn’t know before, and that’s always interesting,” she said, but “granting asylum isn’t an act of gratitude.”
Given that one of the things she learned from Snowden was that the US National Security Agency was bugging her mobile phone, this showed admirable restraint on her part, but even Merkel’s restraint only goes so far.