“German lawmakers may call the heads of the largest U.S. technology companies to testify before their investigation into the National Security Agency’s data-collection activities, adding a new corporate twist to the spying scandal,” Harriet Torry reports for The Wall Street Journal. “The shortlist of potential witnesses, which parliamentarians will discuss at a meeting on Thursday, include Facebook Inc. chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter Inc. CEO Dick Costolo, Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook, lawmakers said. Google Inc.’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, Microsoft’s MSFT General Counsel Brad Smith, and former NSA directors Keith Alexander and Michael Hayden are also on the list.”
“Germany’s four largest parliamentary groups set up the investigation committee in March following public outrage here at the alleged harvesting of Europeans’ telecommunications data by the NSA and its U.K. counterpart. The decisive impetus came after the German government conceded it had little hope of reaching a no-spy agreement with Washington,” Torry reports. “Last year, the Obama administration publicly acknowledged a secret NSA program dubbed Prism, which tapped the servers of major U.S. Internet companies for foreign intelligence purposes—including Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft Corp. U.S.-based tech companies have denied giving the U.S. government unfettered access to user data.”
Torry reports, “U.S. citizens summoned by the Committee aren’t obliged to appear if they are outside Germany, ‘but we hope they will come,’ Roderich Kiesewetter, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat Union who sits on the eight-member committee, told The Wall Street Journal.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take:
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free. – Ronald Reagan, March 30, 1961
Visit the Apple-backed reformgovernmentsurveillance.com today.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz,” “Lynn Weiler,” and “Sarah” for the heads up.]
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Not appearing at the hearing could lead Germany to marshall the EU to invoke new laws that would impact upon communication companies including those that rely on the internet to trade services.
Decline to attend the hearing at your own risk!!!
Russia gives Snowden asylum, Germany probes the NSA…helluva government we’ve got looking out for Americans.
How about Tim offers to give the mole a ride to Germany and about half way over the Atlantic Eric goes swimming.
As long as it’s at least 1000 miles from Nantucket Island.
Hmmm tough call, defend the principles of liberty and safety or betray the modern day United Hates, tough call indeed.
Fortunately it’s optional and a slow boat with a detour to China might be in order. I hear American planes have a tendency to run into buildings.
I wonder how Steve Jobs felt about the NSA probes, he would be privy to the requests NSA made to apple for specific disclosures
If you’re saying that Steve Jobs got requests for data from the NSA, along with threats of jail for treason, that’s very likely. As to how he felt about it, the fact that all the NSA nonsense having to do with Apple started after Jobs died, it’s probable that Jobs told the NSA and their threats to go to hell. The NSA could infiltrate only after Jobs had gone, maybe with threats and with fat government contract bribes.
While Franklin’s words are spot on, Reagan gave primacy to the corporation over people. Reagan says “people” when he means corporation, just as Citizens United are Corporations United v. FEC.