Crude and Rude Prevention
"Of course, we have to keep our internal communication secure, send encrypted emails, use encrypted telephones and other things, which I'm not going to say here."
"Definitely, we have thought about using manual typewriters."
Patrick Sensburg, MP, Germany's ruling Christian Democratic Party
This member of Germany's Bundestag has hit upon a brilliant strategy to prevent secret government data falling into the dastardly hands of American intelligence. If the United States' intelligence community sees fit to undermine trust and covertly, stealthily, unfairly, and hurtfully undertake to spy on a robust ally like Germany whose dedication to the ideals of democracy cannot be questioned, then it behooves Berlin to do whatever it takes to protect itself from such inexcusable predation.
Why, Berlin may decide to begin its own extension of its spy network, gathering intelligence on the government and the agencies of the United States of America! If we are to believe that those German intelligence naifs do not already undertake such fairly basic activities, seen as essential to any nation's security establishment's data gathering apparatus.
Herr. Sensburg is head of a parliamentary enquiry tasked with investigating American spy networks in Germany. Others in his committee are serious about possibly returning manual typewriters to use in the effort to increase national security. Brilliant, utterly brilliant. He was responding to a television channel interlocutor asking whether the committee had considered a swap of iPads and computers for typewriters.
It's difficult in the extreme to imagine the questioner not being a tad supercilious. But no, to Herr Sensburg it clearly represented a serious possibility, and yes, his committee had considered just that very thing. The spying scandal initiated with the American whistleblower Edward Snowden revealing that the American National Security Agency had bugged Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone had scandalized Germany.
The MPs sitting on the committee had become so demoralized about the threats to their own discussions becoming familiar to foreign spies that they had ordered that classical music be played during their meetings. Poor dears; the wall have ears. Just as well they took such precautions, had they been overheard by curious foreign elements Americans in particular would have taken to referring to the committee as the "gong show".
Typewriters? Pluncking away on a mechanical keyboard, cursing errors and the difficulties of manipulating those tired old wrecks, instead of disengaging computers from the Internet and using them as convenient word processors...? It's questionable what of value American intelligence could dredge out of German intelligence when the intelligence bar seems rather low.
Labels: Conspiracy Theories, Controversy, Crisis Poliics, Espionage, Germany, Outrage, United States
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, July 16, 2014
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