No-Spy Agreement on the Brink of Collapse: The End of an Illusion

[unhappycamper]

http://watchingamerica.com/News/230238/no-spy-agreement-on-the-brink-of-collapse-the-end-of-an-illusion/



Nothing is off the table in the NSA affair. The U.S. is not willing to accept an anti-espionage agreement — it was only an illusion to believe that the National Security Agency acted in excess with espionage.

No-Spy Agreement on the Brink of Collapse: The End of an Illusion
Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Germany
By Heribert Parntl
Translated By Erica Wilfong Boxheimer
14 January 2014
Edited by Gillian Palmer

Nothing is sadder than the death of an illusion. It was evidently an illusion to believe that the U.S. will abandon, or at least limit, its spy actions in Germany, against Germany and against German citizens. That the NSA has total access to communication data corresponds to the total refusal of U.S. policy to at least commit to moderation.

It was obviously also an illusion to believe the surveillance of citizens, authorities, companies and organizations that became known in the summer of last year were only an aberration, only an excess of the NSA and not U.S. policy in toto. And it was also obviously an illusion to believe that it would only take a few confidential conversations to rectify the situation.

It is not all right. The recalcitrance on the no-spy agreement between the U.S. and Germany is disturbing, like the bugging operations are and were. The arguments for hesitating are exposed in all three points.

First: The Americans argue that when America reaches an agreement with Germany banning the spying, it would have to reach similar agreements with all other possible countries. Not all other possible countries are members of NATO. Germany is an ally. Allies don’t treat one another like potential enemies. The alliance in which they have aligned themselves is called the defense community. Until now, one could believe that with this alliance, the law and the constitutional state — the concept of “rule of law” — should be defended. That was, and is, obviously a fallacy.