>no one interfered with their ability to publish any story
How do you know it? What sort of interference would you expect these days anyway? The secret order signed by Angela Merkel herself ordering to stop the story or face lifetime in prison?
FOIA records on FBI and CIA show again and again that western governments are not ashamed to use misinformation, defamation, subversion and provocations. In fact, they have become extremely skillful at these hard-to-prove-yet-so-effective-against-civilian tactics.
The burden of proof rests on the person alleging it happened, not the person saying there is no evidence. You're asking me to concede that something must have happened in secret unless I can prove a negative. To top it off, Der Spiegel very strongly suggests that they just recently learned of the matter in the editor's note on the left hand of the page. Nowhere in their reporting (or, to my knowledge, anyone else's reporting) are they claiming that the government forced them to withhold a story.
> FOIA records on FBI and CIA show again and again ...
I'd like to think that discussions on HN ought to be a little more rigorous than dropping unexplained links to a pre-FISA purely domestic FBI program from half a century ago when discussing today's interactions between the CIA, German government and German press...
>I don't know what rules are in place as to what's OK in spying/sabotage and what isn't, but I imagine it's something not super unreasonable
Yeah, but you see, when it comes to regular blood-and-flesh people, we (as a society, through courts) don't judge them based on whether their actions have been reasonable or not. We could, but the world would be very different. Having different standards for different people/organizations is plain hypocritical, undermines democracy and weakens civil society.
I think we very much judge people on whether their actions are reasonable, even at the extremes of when a person takes another's life.
Having different legal standards for what a CIA agent operating in Pakistan can do and a civilian working in the US has absolutely nothing to do with democracy and civil society.
>If you don't want to answer about the chance of conviction, what do you wager the chances of a prosecutor simply bringing a case to a German court are?
And rightfully so! I think forcibly kidnapping someone on the streets of Italy is different than an allied intelligence agencies dropping each other tips about leakers.
Whether allied or not, foreign intelligence agencies spying on German citizens in Germany are unlawful and occasional "help" in the form of informal tips should not make them above the law. NSA should not get preferential treatment over CIA in EU courts and US agencies in general should not get preferential treatment over say China.
I'm talking about what is, not what should be in some perfect world we have no practical way of achieving.
Intelligence agencies are above the law not because they offer tips to each other, but because they have the resources and practice to be careful and not to leave enough evidence to be used to charge anyone.
There's also something fundamental to the nature of dealing in information - you can send anonymous tips, or suggest something while maintaining plausible deniability. I'm sure the source here didn't hand German intel a notarized letter saying "I'm John Doe of the CIA and we've been tapping Der Spiegel phones and this dude's definitely their source on the inside".
Spooks are not gods, it's public's attitude towards them that makes them god-like. German gov't could have started investigation and at least informed Spiegel. They might have found some leads. If not, at least security audit would have made them more aware of threats. Surely the same (hypothetical) entrypoints that NSA/CIA used, could have been used by other organizations or governments. Spiegel covers a lot of international news and certainly has a lot of sources around the world to protect.
Certainly not gods, but immensely powerful organizations with varying moral frameworks and political interests all acting without the convenience of a global system of legal and moral guidance that you and I operate in. Have you ever had to hassle about what's fair to put in a lease? Probably not, since the legal system provides for a pretty rigid API between landlords and tenants. The world we live in is a large series of such APIs, which are constantly and modified via our political and legal systems. The space ICs operate in simply does not have such rules nor anyone to enforce them.
In a world where information is power and without a justice enforcer more powerful than the actors, an unknown leaker is significantly more of a threat than an allied IC. An ally will keep your secrets, and mutual secret-keeping reinforces alliances [1]. Journalists, on the other hand, are the gossip queens of the information trade, as they reap their rewards by telling secrets to everyone without much regard for when it's convenient. They are useful only as long as their access can be controlled.
The entry points NSA/CIA used are being watched by them, or maybe even honeypotted. The space of potential attacks is enormous and it's a waste of resources for the Germans to look for them (if that's even legal) as long as America remains an ally.
Please don't take what I am making as moral judgement of one way or another here, just as the practical analysis of the system I imagine these organizations to operate in.
1. Similar to high school cliques or criminals where mutual blackmail creates alliances where there is no access access to the normal judicial system, contracts, etc.
Regardless of what US laws might or might not say about spying overseas, people and organizations that are operating there are expected to follow local laws. Since Germany doesn't have any provisions that would allow (some) foreigners to spy on German journalists, it's obvious that CIA spying on them is illegal.
Reading through that paper, it seems pretty clear that the author is discussing the rights of foreigners inside the US. The idea that the US should be upholding US constitutional rights for non-US citizens residing in another country's sovereign territory is not something that legal scholars are arguing.
I posted paper to answer blatant "according to Constitution foreigners don't have any rights at all". Regarding other countries - they obviously have their own bills, laws and regulations. The idea that US citizens residing in other countries are exempt from local laws just on the basis that they are doing service to US is ridiculous.
You seem to be arguing against an assertion I never made. Not sure what to clarify. Maybe I wasn't clear somewhere, or maybe you've taken something out of context, I don't know. Might help to go read the thread from the top.
Let me know if you can't figure out where our wires got crossed and I'll try and clarify.
>American filmmaker Linda Poitras introduced the person responsible for the largest intelligence leak in U.S. history (Snowden) to an American journalist Glenn Greenwald, who previously wrote opinion pieces for various American newspapers, including the Cato Institute.
Now both Poitras and Greenwald are afraid to go back to US, though. I wonder why would they avoid the most journalist-friendly country on Earth?
They both live outside of US now and have mentioned their reasons countless times. Laura Poitras explained why she's staying in Germany and how she does not take any materials with her during her trips to US, for example, at the last CCC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmKqdMDastM
They might not have feared for their lives, but they obviously are afraid to have any information on them when crossing the borders and they are simply afraid to do their job as a journalists in US.
"Crossing the borders" being the operative phrase there. You have fewer rights at border crossings than living your life within the confines of the border, unfortunately. This says nothing about the quality of US media (whatever the state of said quality is).
>You have fewer rights at border crossings than living your life within the confines of the border, unfortunately.
Now you'll say that location of Guantanamo Bay prison outside of US jurisdiction is an 'unfortunate accident' as well. Both seem quite purposeful decisions to me.
And yes, the fact that two probably most important journalists of modern times have both chosen to go into exile just to do their job, even though both love their country, - I think this actually says quite a bit about the freedom of press in the said country.
Others have already mentioned that they don't carry their work into the US, but they, themselves, still travel to the US. This is hardly the "exile" that you want it to be (to prove your point).
> Getting around of not being able to spay on your own soil buy letting some other nation state collect all the things does not make it legal
Not preventing someone from spying on your citizens, possibly encouraging them, and not prosecuting that entity once the matters become known, - looks certainly illegal to me.
>try turning up at ha hospital with a bag of blood
I have Rhnull and that is the only way I would donate my blood, ever. My mom (who also has this type) has been looked down as a emergency bag of blood on a few occasions and living with that is terrible experience.
