German angst and the surveillance State

If you drive south from Frankfurt airport on the A6 you pass the Berlin Airlift Memorial: a civilian passenger aircraft and an olive-green military Dakota. For many years, these veteran Rosinenbomber (candy-bombers) have served as a permanent physical reminder to the people of Germany that German democracy was achieved, and is maintained, by the American military. American force of arms was all that stood between us and the surveillance State in the German Democratic Republic.

For half a century, mainstream politicians of all parties in the Federal Republic were therefore in agreement that Germany should give all possible assistance to its American ally, which stationed up to 400,000 personnel on German soil in 1950s at the peak of the Cold War.

It’s a message that lacks resonance with a younger post-Cold War generation. The recent revelations that American drone attacks are being directed from Germany, and that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been spying on German citizens on a massive scale, have been the cause of much public angst and hand-wringing among a liberal political and media elite that had invested so much hope in President Obama.

However, coverage of the NSA affair in Germany has been dominated not by the substantive issues – the nature of the capitalist State and why it needs to spy on us all – but has rather provided the backdrop for the familiar pantomime of speculation, factional charges and counter-charges during the run-up to the Federal elections in 2013.

Meanwhile the USA is demanding that Germany play an even more active role in preparations for future conflicts, under the guise of fighting terrorism.

Over the past two decades the United States of America has gradually wound down its army’s physical presence in Germany. Throughout the Cold War and until earlier this year, the US Army Europe (USAREUR) was headquartered in Heidelberg, from which it built a huge complex of bases in a swathe across Rhineland Pfalz, around the southern Hessen cities of Frankfurt and Darmstadt, and in the northern half of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria (northern Germany was occupied by the British Army on the Rhine). In many cases, these were not merely barracks but small towns with fully functioning services, shops, cinemas, churches and even a prison. At its peak, Patrick Henry Village outside Heidelberg alone had a population of 16,000.

Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, the so-called ‘peace dividend’ allowed vast numbers of troops and equipment to be redeployed in operations around the world, notably in the Middle East and the Balkans in the 1990s and 2000s. Recently the focus has moved to northern Africa and 500 rapid response US Marines are now based at an airbase in southern Spain. By 2017 the number of troops stationed in Germany will be further reduced to 30,000 (Stars and Stripes, 29 November 2012). However, while the number of American boots on German soil has declined, the US military presence has intensified as part of a major redeployment and realignment of forces.

The American presence in Germany now serves two main functions. First, as a forward base serving theatres of war mainly in Africa and the Middle East. Opened in 1952, Ramstein near Kaiserslautern is the largest US air base outside the United States. More than 50,000 US citizens and military officials are currently employed there, while the hospital at nearby Landstuhl is the largest American hospital outside the USA and treats wounded US soldiers from all over the world. As a report by the think tank, the Heritage Foundation recently stated:

     ‘From the Arctic to the Levant, from the Maghreb to the Caucasus, Europe is at one of the most important crossroads of the world. U.S. bases in Europe provide American leaders with flexibility, resilience, and options in a dangerous multipolar world. The huge garrisons of American service personnel in Europe are no longer the fortresses of the Cold War, but the forward operating bases of the 21^st century’.

Thus, whereas throughout the Cold War the Americans viewed Europe as the most likely theatre of operations in the event of a direct war between the two superpowers, today America views Europe as an operations centre for fighting a global conflict, wherever and whenever.

Second, much of the USA’s global surveillance activity is concentrated in Germany. In 2012 the US Army Europe relocated its headquarters from Heidelberg to Wiesbaden, ostensibly in order to achieve savings to the US taxpayer. In fact, the saving is just $112 million out of a total US military budget of $700 billion. The move is not to save costs but rather reflects the new role of the American defence and security apparatus: fewer combat troops, more high-ranking officers, and more civilian surveillance specialists. And there is no lack of funds to accommodate these personnel. According to the US army newspaper,

     ‘Projects include the 59,000-square-foot, 200-workstation Information Processing Center, scheduled for completion next December. USAREUR spokesman Bruce Anderson says the $30.4 million center will improve the capability of USAREUR and 5th Signal Command to deliver timely information and consolidate operations under one roof. The $91 million Consolidated Intelligence Center will be the last of the three operational pieces to be built’  (USAREUR press release, 16 February 2012).

Other facilities being slated for Wiesbaden and environs include logistics and maintenance facilities, warehousing, a housing office and a new $43.8 million PX facility with various retail outlets. So the funds are not in short supply.

The Consolidated Intelligence Center, scheduled for completion in 2015, will be the focus for US surveillance operations. The 1100 or so ‘intelligence professionals’ and ‘special security officers’ currently based at the Dagger Complex near Darmstadt, will be relocated here. They will work with NSA bugging specialists based at Bad Aibling in Bavaria who, as revealed in the documents released by US whistle-blower Edward Snowden, ‘will have their own communications headquarters and direct connection to the NSA data networks’ (Der Spiegel, 3 August 2013) despite the fact that since 2002 Bad Aibling has been formally under the control of the German Federal Republic.

The documents prove that Germany played a central role in the NSA’s global surveillance and that each month, the US intelligence service saves data from around half a billion communications connections from Germany. According to one of the documents published by Der Spiegel, Germany is among the countries that are high on the priority list for the US intelligence service, and the NSA is spying on German citizens, right up to the highest levels of the German government (as well as the Washington offices of the European Union) with approval from the White House (Der Spiegel, 10 August 2013).

But, according to a report in the Atlantic Council:

     ‘The new aspect of the revelations isn’t that countries are trying to spy on each other, eavesdropping on ministers and conducting economic espionage. What is most important about the documents is that they reveal the possibility of the absolute surveillance of a country’s people and foreign citizens without any kind of effective controls or supervision. Among the intelligence agencies in the Western world, there appears to be a division of duties and at times extensive cooperation. And it appears that the principle that foreign intelligence agencies do not monitor the citizens of their own country, or that they only do so on the basis of individual court decisions, is obsolete in this world of globalized communication and surveillance. Britain’s GCHQ intelligence agency can spy on anyone but British nationals, the NSA can conduct surveillance on anyone but Americans, and Germany’s BND foreign intelligence agency can spy on anyone but Germans. That’s how a matrix is created of boundless surveillance in which each partner aids in a division of roles’ (1 July 2013).

In short, the world’s security agencies are spying on each other’s citizens and sharing the information, thereby evading all constitutional checks on their powers.

Politicians of all parties diffuse dissent

In his series of interviews with the UK’s Guardian newspaper, Edward Snowden specifically asserted that the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and NSA have been collaborating on operating cyber-spying programmes such as PRISM (the clandestine data mining of communications and stored information) and XKeyScore (the NSA tool that records virtually all activity on the internet) as well as exchanging information to collect data on German nationals. This presented the ruling class with some problems in Germany. Germany’s public has been brought up to believe that, in contrast to the Nazi and Stalinist regimes of the past, the Federal Republic guarantees everybody’s right to privacy. The idea of being under constant surveillance is a difficult sell, even in times of crisis, so the ruling class has deployed all the techniques of the spin-doctor’s playbook: recast the question, filter out the more dangerous aspects of the discussion and focus on the trivial (such as the personality of Edward Snowden), create red herrings, deflect direct questions, issue vacuous statements reassuring the public that they have nothing to worry about etc.

Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) claimed in an interview with Die Zeit that she only heard about the US data collection activities via news reports – a ludicrous assertion, given that the BND reports directly to the Chancellor’s office (Die Zeit, 17 July 2013). She was ridiculed for trying to play the endearingly innocent ingénue with her excuse that ‘the internet is new to us all’ (McClatchy’s Washington Bureau, Memories of Stasi color Germans’ view of U.S. surveillance programme, 26 June 2013).

Roland Pofalla the Chief of Staff of the Chancellery who is responsible for overseeing the BND, fatuously asserted that ‘All questions concerning the allegations against the German intelligence service have been resolved … Data protection is maintained’. As Germany’s leftist daily Die Tageszeitung commented, what he meant by this was not, of course, that there would be no further mass surveillance of the German public, but that the BND and NSA (and the British GCHQ) would cooperate on spying, i.e. we could trust the German State to ensure that the Americans and the British did not abuse the trust of the German government (TAZ, 13 August 2013).

Naturally, the German left can be trusted no more than the conservative coalition. Opposition Social Democrats (SPD) accused the government of being too soft in its stance towards the NSA’s activities; a rather difficult position to maintain since it was the SPD-Green coalition which, in 2002, agreed to strengthen cooperation and data sharing between the NSA and the BND – and in fact, it was the current SPD leader, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who concluded the deal. The SPD responded by saying that the 2002 agreement related to the specific circumstances of the September 11 attacks and was never intended to allow comprehensive surveillance of the entire population.

In short, whereas the SPD ‘only’ unlocked the door and left it wide open, the CDU kicked it down with some gusto.

The Pirate Party, which says it would like to reinvigorate democracy for the 21^st century, focusing on issues around internet privacy and transparency in government, only added to the mystification. Its leader Udo Vettel told Der Spiegel, ‘We cannot afford a secret service that ignores the constitution’ (Der Spiegel, 14 August 2013). But as we have seen, the German BND might well observe its obligation not to spy on ‘its own’ citizens. It merely has to turn a blind eye while the NSA and GCHQ do this for them.

Like the German Greens in the 1980s, the Pirate Party is posing as an alternative whose hands are unsullied by participation in government, i.e. it serves as a safety valve for those who believe that the mainstream democratic parties are behind the times, and are therefore a threat to German democracy!

A ‘hip’ new defence of the surveillance State

In Germany as elsewhere, parliament provides a forum where heated discussions revolve around very slight disagreements on the direction of policy and the State’s priorities. Fewer and fewer people take this parliamentary posturing seriously and the bourgeoisie is exploring some more sophisticated approaches to conditioning public opinion to accept the political consensus.

‘Progressive’ voices within the bourgeoisie, particularly those associated with the growing mobile computing and communications market (smartphones, tablets and app-based software) are asserting that the new generation, brought up on social media, already publishes everything the State needs to know about them via Facebook. They have no hang-ups about sharing information (so long as they get some perceived benefit in return, as when you download a ‘free’ app). Proof: the instant messaging system WhatsApp, which requires subscribers to upload the contents of their smartphone’s address book in return for the service. WhatsApp has very quickly accumulated 250 million active users, and handles 27 billion messages in a single day (Wall Street Journal, June 20, 2013).

But what come’s next? Many are now arguing that social media can help to save German’s democracy in an era of declining political participation. The Guardian recently reported a pilot project in Heidelberg:

     ‘Findings from a major study in 2011 by the Bertelsmann Foundation show that in recent years many young Germans have become disinterested in electing a representative, preferring to have a direct role in local projects. At the same time, they seem less inclined to attend public meetings, read the newspaper or listen to public broadcasts. They increasingly rely on social media to stay informed and voice their opinions, but they still expect politicians to hear what they’re saying’.

The article goes on to explain how the city of Heidelberg is exploring social media data and using its findings not only to explain the council’s policies at a time of increasing political disengagement, but also as a way to identify and diffuse dissent early, and to ensure that unpopular decisions can be pushed through. The Mayor of Heidelberg’s Chief of Staff explained,

     ‘Opinions expressed on social media also show that most vocal campaigns are short lived. Yet, those that persist are volatile and a campaign of disinformation can derail public support for a project. When rumours are turned into urban myth the general public is left disenfranchised. Local authorities are well-advised to identify such trends as early as possible and to reassure the public with reliable information’ (The Guardian, 12 August 2013).

During various uprisings around the world, notably in Iran and during the so-called ‘Arab spring’, commentators from establishment think tanks have praised the liberating role of social media. Yet the readiness of Facebook and Twitter as well as search engine companies like Google to share data with authorities, the ability of the authorities to identify dangerous trends in opinion using an arsenal of analytical tools, and the increasing sophistication of both private and State agencies in manipulating these confirm that until its political power is directly confronted, the ruling class will be the controlling voice in social media, just as it is the controlling voice in print, radio, TV and every other form of mass media.

‘Fighting terrorism‘

Whatever the outcome of the Federal election, cooperation on intelligence will continue between Germany and America under the pretext of ‘fighting terrorism’ in order to ‘defend democracy’ and ‘our civilised values’, the catch-all justification for extending the powers of the State just about everywhere. (The current low level of terrorist activity is cited as proof that surveillance is working, so we need more of it.)

In May, during a visit to Washington with Defence Minister Thomas de Maizière, Germany’s Interior Minister Hans Peter Friedrich stressed that Germany and the US were ‘intimately linked’ in fighting terrorism and worked well together ‘at all levels’. He also called for closer electronic surveillance of travel within the European Union, mirroring the US Electronic System for Travel Authorisation (ESTA). Citing the example of the Boston bombing, Friedrich asserted that terrorists increasingly act independently of larger organisations such as Al Qaida, effectively justifying the State in regarding every citizen as a target for State surveillance.

During the same visit, Thomas de Maizière assured the United States of German support in its imperialist campaigns around the world, which of course are mainly being fought under the banner of anti-terrorism. Soon afterwards, reports in the Süddeutsche Zeitung and on ARD television revealed that the Stuttgart-based supreme command of the United States Africa Command (US Africom) and the Air Operations Center (AOC) at the US air force base in Ramstein are directly involved in drone attacks in Somalia. The German government at first responded to the investigation by asserting that no attacks were directed from German soil, then backtracked and claimed rather implausibly that it had ‘no evidence’ that the attacks were taking place. There is nothing new here. Germany’s constitution very clearly states, ‘Acts tending to and undertaken with intent to disturb the peaceful relations between nations, especially to prepare for a war of aggression, shall be unconstitutional. They shall be made a criminal offense.’

The German government has already established a pattern of denial, duplicity and obfuscation to get round its formally pacifist constitution and widespread public opposition to militarism. In 2003, the SDP-Green government of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer spoke against the Iraq war. At the same time, however, they guaranteed Washington the unrestricted use of US bases in Germany. For weeks, huge quantities of military hardware stationed in Germany was repainted for the desert and transported to Iraq, while Ramstein air base played a critical role as a transit centre between the USA, Europe and the Middle East throughout the war and during the occupation.

Communists understand that the bourgeoisie is increasingly attracted to war as a way of resolving a prolonged crisis. That is why militarism and surveillance of the public go hand in hand: in the event of a war, the ruling class will want to snuff out potential sources of resistance as quickly as possible, while identifying ineffective sources of pseudo-opposition and co-opting them to its own ends. We also understand that talk about reinvigorating democracy, for example through greater transparency, social media etc only deflect attention away from the realities of power.

Moreover, while we recognise the heroism of individual actors such as Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning in exposing the truth about the surveillance State and military operations around the world, we understand that the bourgeoisie is perfectly able to exploit such revelations, on the one hand by fostering the illusion that the military can be held to account through democratic institutions, while simultaneously destroying the individuals concerned (Bradley Manning’s recantation, when he faced a 90-year prison sentence, was reminiscent of a Stalinist show-trial). The state prefers to achieve its ends through constitutional means, but it will by-pass these whenever necessary.