I'm German, and I can't remember ever having heard such a distinction - that some things are okay when done to foreigners, but not when done to Germans - apart from neo-nazis.

Sure, who knows what the BND is up to. But "behaving this way" also includes rhetoric that is not just considered acceptable in polite company, but even uttered by state officials... and as I said, I can't recall a single example, so maybe enlighten me? Or are you just assuming?

Just a reminder:

"In an interview with Der Spiegel , Snowden claimed that the NSA provided German intelligence, with analysis tools to help the organisation monitor data flowing through Germany. “The NSA people are in bed together with the Germans,"” he told the magazine.

He added that the NSA’s foreign affairs directorate, which is responsible for relations with other countries, had set up a system whereby political leaders “could be insulated” from the backlash if spying became public and helped to play down how grievously they were “violating global privacy.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/nsa-in-bed-wi...

Also, scale still matters. Killing a person or slapping them in the face are both violence, but there is still a difference, otherwise we could just reduce all to "physical and chemical processess going on" and completely stop thinking. I don't believe for a second that Germany, or even France, Italy or Russia (which I consider rather right wing) have programs to scoop up traffic from Google's internal network in place. Maybe they would like to, but they can't pull it off. And while I wouldn't bet on it, I wouldn't be surprised if China doesn't either.

German soldiers abroad (say, in Afghanistan). Do they respect foreign law ? Of course not. Non-EU residents on German soil are subject to summary arrest and deportation (it's more complex than this, I know, but as summaries go you could do worse) German social security treats citizens, residents and illegal aliens vastly differently German domestic wiretapping laws are basically that the executive gets to spy on anyone on German soil without judicial oversight AND outside of Germany. While it's of course true that this is not a distinction, it's actually worse than US law. German wiretapping laws do not let companies evaluate the legality of a wiretapping order before complying, unlike US law. Telecom companies operating in Germany are forced to provide the government with an automated system that can wiretap anyone on their networks without even their technicians knowing about who/what is being wiretapped. Needless to say, these systems are in constant use, and have been expanded. Small detail : in the US, the government will at least pay companies appropriately (handsomely even) for costs related to wiretapping. In Germany (like most of the EU) companies have to comply, fund it themselves, and can't even look at the orders. Non-compliance with this is punishable under criminal law (meaning the CEO, techies, field techs, or anyone in the telco can be arrested if the company refuses to comply) The BND does not just have the right to spy on anyone, but it can summarily arrest anyone, intervene in any investigation without question (so they could, for example, kill someone, then take over the investigation, no questions asked). They can confiscate any goods, on German soil and outside of it, without so much as an explanation. They aren't even the only government department in Germany that has this power, the tax office has the same power.

As an EU citizen myself, I find the EU's "anger" at US spying somewhere between moronic and hypocritical. Especially France's is beyond all comparison, knowing that they just physically arrested someone for refusing to store all records of his customer's transmissions for a full year, entirely on his own dime. Furthermore, both France and Germany have used the information they force ISPs to spy for them to enforce copyrights. Neither country has any qualms about sending all citizen's internet traffic to a private organisation that is not answerable to the government at all, and is not even attempting to enforce criminal law (the NSA is at least doing this to prevent real crime, like 9/11. Germany and France are transmitting everyone's internet usage to an organisation so it could sue them for copyright infringement in an automated fashion. There's just no comparison)

Note that furthermore, in the EU, these practices have been voted in by a non-democratically elected government (the EU commission). So the EU can't even claim that parliament approved these measures, because they didn't (barring a few exceptions). This has been imposed by people negotiating "international treaties".

Can anyone please explain to me why, if there's outrage about the NSA, why isn't there 10x the outrage about EU practices ? The way it is makes absolutely no sense.

And where are the statements saying other countries shouldn't deport illegal aliens? My post asked about exceptionalism, openly stated, did it not?

> German domestic wiretapping laws are basically that the executive gets to spy on anyone on German soil without judicial oversight AND outside of Germany [..] The BND does not just have the right to spy on anyone, but it can summarily arrest anyone, intervene in any investigation without question (so they could, for example, kill someone, then take over the investigation, no questions asked). [..] Germany and France are transmitting everyone's internet usage to an organisation so it could sue them for copyright infringement in an automated fashion.

Uhhhh.... sources for all that please.

> Can anyone please explain to me why, if there's outrage about the NSA, why isn't there 10x the outrage about EU practices ?

Maybe the lack of abducting people and torturing them, or killing them with drones has something to do with it? And still, there isn't a month without demonstrations against some of the stuff you mentioned, like Vorratsdatenspeicherung. Other stuff is either flat out wrong or widely unknown, your posting of sources will decide that..

http://strasbourgobservers.com/2010/07/06/389/

Given this article, I think it's safe to say that people get tortured to varying degrees by the German police on a weekly basis at least. Like the US, in the vast majority of cases the police do this for very good reasons.

As for a basic introduction to German wiretapping law:

https://www.privacyinternational.org/reports/germany/ii-surv...

Also you act surprised ? Why ? These laws are the "roughly" same across the EU. Generally a certain degree of violence, even what might be considered torture (but not outright "real" torture. Violence against an arrested person, ie. hitting them or so, even things like denying food/drink when it's not life threatening) is allowed in the EU to protect the institutions (parliament, government, ...) (but only for "existential" threats that threaten the institution itself, not just, say, the building), and to protect the lives of others.

- "the executive gets to spy on anyone on German soil without judicial oversight"

- "The BND does not just have the right to spy on anyone, but it can summarily arrest anyone, intervene in any investigation without question"

- "Germany and France are transmitting everyone's internet usage to an organisation so it could sue them for copyright infringement in an automated fashion"

?

from the link you posted, emphasis mine:

> "According to a 2003 survey, 75 percent of conducted telephone wiretapping actions violated the law. In most instances of wiretapping, law enforcement agencies did not inform the subjects after the eavesdropping took place, contrary to what is stipulated by the law. [..] In April 1998, Article 13 of the Constitution (Grundgesetz) that provides for the inviolability of private homes was amended in order to allow police authorities to place bugging devices in private homes (provided there is a court order)."

I wasn't "acting surprised", I was asking for sources, and now I kind of have to call bullshit on a lot of the stuff you said.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Germany#Torture

Yup, bullshit. And at any rate nowhere near comparable to the US, where people are afraid to close Gitmo because the people were so badly mistreated they might turn on them. So why would I be "10 times more" outraged? Maybe because I, as a German/EU citizen, am more directly responsible for the stuff going on here - granted. But otherwise? Get real. Have you even READ the first article you posted?

> "The Court stated that “[t]orture, inhuman or degrading treatment cannot be inflicted even in circumstances where the life of an individual is at risk” and –under its assessment of the alleged violation of art. 6 – “[b]eing absolute, there can be no weighing of other interests against article 3."

How does this make you conclude that "people get tortured to varying degrees by the German police on a weekly basis at least"? That's just saying stuff, in the hope some of it will stick. Boo.

So you should only compare German police using torture Police, FBI or DEA or some department like that using torture inside America on American citizens. There I think it's much, much less clear that the rate of torture in Germany is higher or lower than the rate used by American law enforcement agencies. I'd guess the rate in Germany would be lower, but not that much, simply because America has many more regions where heavy violence against the police happens very often.

As for what the BND does, is it really so hard to find ? http://www.globalresearch.ca/germanys-intelligence-service-b... http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/04/german-... ...

(note that information they forwarded, they obviously collected first, so yes, it does in fact prove the BND spies on all German citizens as part of normal operations)

Simply not true. There may be a few large countries trying, but at nowhere near the global capability to lay bare all details of just about any person on the planet, like the US. And that's just comparing to the larger countries. The UK hacked Belgian telecoms, you're going to have to show me some proof that the reverse is also true. That's ridiculous.

The consequences of the Netherlands "behaving in this way to one extent or another" towards the US--yes, even a little bit--would not be very positive for the Netherlands. We do, however, "have a foreign policy and interests abroad".

The fact that the US believes it can get away with this sort of behaviour (and we'll have to see about that), doesn't somehow make it right or justify it in any way.

As for the US being allowed to get away with it, I do not have any simple prescriptions to offer the US government for replacing it with something better, although I too wish it did not engage in it.