back to article NSA snooped on German chancellors for DECADES: Wikileaks

Less than a month after Germany abandoned its probe into alleged NSA spying on Chancellor Angela Merkel, a new Wikileaks drop suggests snooping on the Chancellory goes back decades. The leak, published here, draws the inference that prior chancellors were targeted, based on the list of telephone numbers targeted by the NSA. “ …

  1. iLuddite

    odd

    It seems that everyone except the terrorists are being spied on these days.

    1. Mark 85

      Re: odd

      I'm thinking that many times, the governments are the real terrorists. Any attack on the population just serves to keep them in power.

      We end up with terrorists like government and then there's the fanatics like those popping up in the Middle East. Two different flavors but are what they are.... terrorists.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: odd

        I'm thinking that many times, the governments are the real terrorists. Any attack on the population just serves to keep them in power.

        Let me correct that: "Any attack on the population just serves to keep people distracted"

        It appears that there is a strong correlation between the desire for population surveillance and a government being up to no good. The more they push to violate your rights without supervision or accountability and point at "bad people out there", the more you should start digging underneath.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: odd

          This^ and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs, when he first appears he is a protector. --Plato

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: odd

      >It seems that everyone except the terrorists are being spied on these days.

      On account of spying on politicians and spying on paedophiles amounting to much the same thing?

      http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/11694195/Lord-Greville-Janner-violated-raped-and-tortured-children-in-the-Houses-of-Parliament.html

  2. Winkypop Silver badge
    FAIL

    Ich bin ein Berliner

    Trust me...

    1. bill 36
      Thumb Up

      Re: Ich bin ein Berliner

      Yip,

      famous gaff but maybe he was right. He was a cake and eventually eaten by his own people.

      But i prefer the gaff from Bush....the problem with the French is they have no word for Entrepreneur.

      1. Sir Runcible Spoon
        Coat

        Re: Ich bin ein Berliner

        I thought he called himself a doughnut?

      2. Trigonoceps occipitalis

        Re: Ich bin ein Berliner

        "famous gaff"

        Maybe, but JFK was speaking to an Anglophone audience and the correct German syntax and words would not have been as effective, possibly not understood.

        1. Kubla Cant
          Headmaster

          Re: Ich bin ein Berliner

          "famous gaff"

          Since we're dicussing the meaning of words, I think I'm entitled to point out that a "famous gaff" would be something you use to kill fish. JFK's mistake was a gaffe.

          1. iLuddite

            Re: Ich bin ein Berliner

            Ah, but bill 36 was in character. The French have no word for 'gaffe'.

            1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

              Given that there are French fishermen, I'm pretty sure that they have a word for a stick to kill fish with.

              No idea what it is though.

    2. Nick L

      Could have been worse...

      He could have tried "Ich bin ein Pariser..."

  3. noj
    Joke

    Might be easier to simply list the people the NSA did NOT spy on. There must be someone out there that's never used a phone, US mail, credit card, only uses cash, been seen on a street cam...

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