Tuesday, August 4, 2015

German intel agency declares a "Confidential" doc a state secret

Note: In case you think we have no idea of what we are talking about, please see the very end of the post.

This is a follow-up to yesterday's post Treason complaint by German domestic intel against online platform netzpolitik.org.

As we mentioned yesterday, the German federal domestic intelligence agency BfV filed a criminal complaint with the top federal prosecutor's office against two journalists of the web site netzpolitik.org and unknown leakers of government documents.

We mentioned the difference between a prosecution for disclosing official secrets and a prosecution for treason, the latter being the only area of the two which falls under the responsibility of the top federal prosecutor.

The distinction hinges on the concept of "official secret" and "state secret". A state secret is an official secret of major importance.

When we went to the site of netzpolitik.org to check what the fuss was all about, we found that they stated the classification of one of the two documents that draw the ire of German officialdom as "Confidential" (German: VS-Vertraulich).

The K-Landnews TheEditor sighed: These jokers just declared a run of the mill Confidential document a state secret worthy of a treason investigation. Please say this out loud. Just declared a run of the mill Confidential document a state secret worthy of a treason investigation. They should be fired, every single one of them. If it is a state secret, the information should never have been given the second lowest classification in the first place. Read the English version of the thing, and tell me if that looks like a state secret to you, it** grumbled. And if this document really contains a "state secret", it has the wrong classification, in which case someone should be hauled into court for not finding the correct stamp.

But don't you agree journalists should not be above the law?

Of course, but that is not the question. Everybody and their uncle has published bits and pieces of classified information, not just the NSA top secret strap-on stuff, but German highly classified documents. The major papers and the powerful air quote public end air quote TV stations have done so repeatedly. But they go after a web site, get the idea?

The world is a complex place, and domestic intelligence needs its private space to protect us against terrorism.

Right, like in 1978, when the domestic intelligence agency of the German state of Lower Saxony had the famous anti-terror unit GSG 9 blow a big hole into a prison wall to stage an escape attempt by a convicted terrorist held there? Look, these agencies don't get additional funds for claiming they have a handle on extremism, they get cash when they claim new threats. Call it the Germans' wicked sense of humor.

That's an old story. But modern terrorists and their sympathizers use Twitter and Facebook, that makes social media dangerous.

If you are a terrorist or a sympathizer with a Twitter or Facebook account, you may just as well paint a big fat target on your back. You are certainly a contender for a Darwin Award, buddy. Let me tell you a secret: at least 95% of the information that gets classified is not worth the ink for the stamp or the price of the cover sheet.

So, you don't want to see leakers prosecuted at all?

Well, personally? Not in the 95% of cases of garbage with a stamp, and for the rest, sure, why shouldn't the government be able to prosecute its employees for unauthorized disclosure of highly sensitive information. 

Then it picked up the old PS2 computer mouse (cord truncated to 3 inches to avoid injury) and flung it across the basement newsroom past the imaginary lava lamp.

This symbolic act normally signals the end of TheEditor's contribution, though not today.

Remember this one post that got us two calls on the unregistered land line within a couple of hours of publication?

Ahmmm....

The two males with their distinctive voices, you know the type, who both pulled a sorry, wrong number?

Yes.

Don't you think by now they'd be smart enough to use some soft computerized female voice for that?

Ahmm...

See.

You are looking for the note?

Further down.

**TheEditor insists on a gender neutral form of reference, hence "it".

Note: Written with the help of someone who knows what it feels like to carry a briefcase flanked by 6 ft 5 armed guards and smart enough to memorize right-left-right combinations. 
Oh, and have you heard this joke:
Q: What is first thing every newly security cleared worker has done since the 1960s?
A: Made a photocopy of it.

[Update] fixed typo with -> within [end update]

[Update for our German friends]
1) Hinter der spöttelnden Beschreibung "written with the help of..." verbirgt sich ein ehemaliger Leiter einer Registratur für Verschlussachen.
2) Die Behauptung des BfV-Gutachtens nach Bericht in der Sueddeutschen, dass ein gegnerischer Nachrichtendienst aus den Netzpolitikdokumenten wesentliche Erkenntnisse erlangen kann, ist Schwachsinn.
Ein gegnerischer Dienst, der diese Dinge nicht schon zehn oder mehr Jahre auf seiner ToDo-Liste hat, ist noch unfähiger als das BfV.
[End of German update]


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