Massive US-spying. Security-cameras all over the planet transmit directly to US-military.

[DetlefK]

http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/bnd-skandal-netbotz-baut-offenbar-hintertueren-in-seine-kameras-a-1114252.html
(article in german)

The US-based company NetBotz is selling security-cameras. These cameras are being used in high-security-areas all over the world, from Korea and Thailand to Germany, in government-installations as well in corporate installations.

NetBotz is aggressively selling its cameras at an unusually low price.

These cameras also have a built-in backdoor that sends everything they see to servers of the US-Military.

In 2007, NetBotz tried be bought out by a german company to hide the fact that the cameras are manufactured in the US. They were eventually successful and were bought out by the French corporation "Schneider Electric". Both companies deny that they ever knew of this backdoor.




Here's the kicker:
The german intelligence-service BND already knew of this in 2004. They actively decided against reporting it to their superiors because they "feared the political implications".
In 2005, the BND noticed that NetBotz is aggressively selling its cameras extremely cheap to government-departments, to corporations operating with high-tech and military hardware. And they still didn't tell anybody.
It took investigations by german attorney-generals for the german counter-espionage unit BfV to find out what the BND should have reported to them in an official manner.