But then where would we get most of our sigint from, if not from the NSA? Its not like we have those capabilities ourselves. But I agree that Germany is starting to look a little.... foolish, but there is no easy way out for us. We need the USA more than they need us.
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Apparently, most of the data NSA collects is useless. And even with that data, other intelligence agencies (read: other countries') are often better informed than the Americans.
Having the most amount of data is not the same has having the best intelligence agency. How can data be useful if you don't know what it's for?
German intelligence is likely more sophisticated than American intelligence.[0] Of course, as with most European intelligence agencies, they do have several centuries of advantage. It took CIA quite a while to figure out not see world politics in a pure East vs West picture. You cannot build that amount of experience overnight.
Do you think the KGB outmanoeuvred the CIA at every turn because of a bigger budget or lack of restrictions? Nay, KGB relied heavily on 600 years of espionage experience. Experience that used to mean the life or death of several European states.
Europe may have granted their former colonies independence, but the experience gathered in our years as masters have not been for naught. It is not without reason France knows central Africa like its backhand.
USA may have more data, because they have the technical knowhow and capability. But they still lack the experience. The relationships between European and American intelligence agencies are certainly mutually beneficial.
CIA's best kept secret is how little they know.
[0] Of course, there will often be the occasional embarrassing story that would dispute this claim. But don't let these few stories fool you.
>German intelligence is likely more sophisticated than American intelligence.
Doubtful. German intelligence is probably as effective as Wally from Dilbert. However, shelving TTIP and/or expelling the US ambassador would make a statement.
And of course - in the long run - not sitting on our asses but building and effective intelligence service ourselves.
As Tomte points out, this is largely a guessing game we are playing. How can we really know one way or the other?
But I concede, German intelligence is likely the weaker link in European intelligence agencies (and weaker than American as well), not from lack of skill or knowhow, but a political inability to pursue it. Germany's recent history has left Germans rather on the unfavourable side of intelligence agencies and surveillance. I would even imagine the Allies imposing restrictions on the Germans following the Second World War.
One odd thing about German intelligence - they have their own set of Russian launched synthetic aperture radar spy satellites:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAR-Lupe
Germany has the synthetic aperture radar birds and France runs optical satellites.
I'd love to know who they spend most time watching.
That's the big guessing game everyone is playing here: is our intelligence community really as clueless and incapable as we Germans tend to assume? Or is that just a masterful deceit?
Meta data is not useless. There is a great Ted talk from a german who sued deutsche telekom to release their meta data from him. He won and he reconstructed a perfect movement profile and social profile with the call history from himself. Just like you would see in the movies. The claim that its useless is only made by muppet politicians talking the issue down. He is a private person without 600 years of experience you 'may' 'likely' need. No secret.
>Apparently, most of the data NSA collects is useless. And even with that data, other intelligence agencies (read: other countries') are often better informed than the Americans.
Do you have any sources for these claims?
We do have SIGINT capabilities. I did my compulsary military service in one of those installations.
Although what I experienced there was... laughable.