Saturday, November 2, 2013

Are 24% of Germans too fearful?

We have had our share of fun with all the surveillance stories since June 2013, so for a simple, more balanced view, the brief post "Our cozy surveillance state" from April 2013 is better because it is from well before the frenzy of the second half of 2013.

The big story in today's German news is that 76% of Germans do not feel personally threatened by the NSA.

The unanswered question to us is do the remaining 24% feel personally threatened, and if so, why?

While there is anecdotal evidence of travelers having to turn around and fly home or being asked lots of highly private questions on entering a country, it is just that: anecdotal. It can happen when you go the the U.S., it can happen when you go to Europe, and on and on. 

Then there is the question "What if anything you know is wrong?", asked for good reason by J. Schindler. His German, by the way, is probably better than ours.

We'll try to think a bit more about those 24%, and in the meantime, we end this post with the only quote we remember from the TV show Breaking Bad: it's complicated.


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