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“Immediately, we should stop all data deliveries to the United States,” she said. “Flight passenger records, financial transactions, etc. . . . We must make it very clear that the United States cannot expect any more data until we have an agreement on how our citizens’ privacy will be treated. We are not powerless in this matter. It’s not as if the United States can do whatever it wants without repercussions.”
Part of that is the beginning of a discussion in Germany to give a home to the fugitive Snowden.
“With federal prosecutors investigating possible espionage against Germany, the government shouldn’t just offer Snowden asylum, but perhaps even witness protection,” Green Party parliamentarian Hans-Christian Stroebele said Tuesday.
And, in the medium that is the source of this spy scandal, the anonymous commentators are frothing. The Spiegel expose on the depth of the scandal attracted 191 pages of comments within the first day, including one who noted: “I’ve had it now. I will file charges against a person unknown for violating the telecommunications code at the prosecutor’s office first thing Monday.”
A reader on the website of the Die Zeit newspaper went further: “In fact, there can only be one consequence: the cessation of all diplomatic relations with the United States by the EU. Who needs a partner who spies on you? The Americans are a nation in decline anyway. One should look for partners elsewhere.”
It’s not an uncommon thought in Europe these days, said Bibi van Ginkel, a terrorism and security expert at the Clingendael Institute, a Dutch think tank.
“The anger, the worry, these are things we hear a lot, from people and in the newspapers,” she said. “Government officials, either because they were on the inside or want to appear as if they were, are more muted. But people here are surprised at the scope, and the Cold War practices. This is extreme espionage.”
Video: Snowden's Asylum Requests Spurned
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