German Intelligence Watching Politicians

More than one-third of the far-left Left Party's parliamentarians are under observation by Germany's domestic intelligence agency, SPIEGEL has learned. Much larger than previously thought, the operations cost nearly 400,000 euros a year. Critics worry it's disproportionate to surveillance of the right-wing extremist NPD party.

January 23, 2012 
Courtesy of "Der Spiegel Online"

Germany's opposition far-left Left Party is under more intense surveillance from domestic intelligence than previously thought, SPIEGEL has learned. Information from the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) reveals that 27 Left Party parliamentarians are being observed -- more than one-third of the party's 76-strong parliamentary group.

Another 11 members of state parliaments around the country are also being watched, SPIEGEL has learned. The agency has declined to release the politicians' names, as it would "run counter to the operative aims of the observation."

Concern about the Left Party's democratic pedigree is not new. The party formed in 2007 when a successor party to the East German communist party joined a leftist group from Western Germany. There have been numerous reports since then of party figures who were affiliated with the East German secret police, the Stasi, prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The BfV is reportedly watching not just radical party members, but also a number of more moderate members, including almost all of the Left Party's leading figures in parliament. Among the targets are leader Gregor Gysi, deputy chairwoman Sahra Wagenknecht, and members of the party's parliamentary committee Dietmar Bartsch and Jan Korte.

But it's the inclusion of Steffen Bockhahn, a member of the parliamentary committee that oversees the country's intelligence agencies' budgets, that is raising eyebrows. His surveillance is particularly sensitive because in December 2011, the parliamentary research service determined that "because of the special job description of the committee … only very extraordinary circumstances could justify the surveillance of a member."

'Questions About Proportionality'

According to a Jan. 4, 2012 document from the Interior Ministry, the BfV employs seven workers for the "handling of the Left Party" with personnel costs of some €390,000 ($504,000) per year. By way of comparison, more than 10 domestic intelligence agents are conducting surveillance on members of the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD), at a cost of some €590,000 each year.

The BfV stresses that the Left Party politicians are not "under surveillance," but being "observed," during which no "intelligence service methods" are used. Instead, only public sources such as newspapers or speech manuscripts are analyzed, it says.

Still, Left Party parliamentary group leader Gregor Gysi reacted angrily to the news. "The parliamentarians are there to control the domestic intelligence agency. It is shameless that they think they can monitor a third of the parliamentarians in the Left Party faction," he told daily Mitteldeutsche Zeitung on Sunday. "Now it has finally become clear that the domestic intelligence agency is nuts."

The environmentalist Green Party has also expressed concern over the BfV measures, as the agency has recently come under fire for investigative errors in the case against the Zwickau neo-Nazi terror cell, which is thought to have murdered at least 10 people since 2000.

Comparing BfV efforts against the far-left and far-right inspires "questions about the sense and proportionality of the measures," said Volker Beck, a senior member of the Greens' parliamentary group. "The measures seem disproportionate when compared to the expenditures for measures against the NPD."

The Funny-Business Section

Posted by Guest Blogger "Sayf Maslul"

Above The Law

Posted by Guest Blogger "Sayf Maslul" 

By "Steve Kroft" 
Courtesy Of "60 Minutes"


"Congressmen and Senators are expending much of their time and their energy raising the millions of dollars in campaign funding they'll need to hold onto a job that pays $174,000 a year. Few are doing it for the salary and all will say they're doing it to serve the public. 

But there are other benefits: power, prestige and the opportunity to become a Washington insider with access to information and connections that no one else has.

In an environment of privilege, where rules that govern the rest of the country, don't always apply to them.
Most former Congressmen and Senators manage to leave Washington, if they ever leave Washington, with more money in their pockets than they had when they arrived." [Steve Kroft, 60 Minutes]

Moments In Love

Posted by "CavalierZee" 

Artist "Art Of Noise"

"Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings." [ANAIS NIN]

"Caresses, expressions of one sort or another, are necessary to the life of the affections, as leaves are to the life of trees. If they are wholly restrained, love will die at the roots." 
[NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, American Note-Books, Mar. 9, 1853]

Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.
[WILLIAM BLAKE, Songs of Experience]

Imagine

Posted by Guest Blogger "Sayf Maslul"

Yes, imagine - a country that takes hundreds of thousands of its young men and women, puts them in harm’s way for the benefit of a small elite, doesn’t provide them with an economy that can absorb them when they’ve completed their service, doesn’t provide them with adequate healthcare, doesn’t deal with the emotional and physical costs of the violence it asks them to unleash and suffer, and thinks not a whit about the people on whom that violence is exercised.

Imagine if the US as a whole behaved even more like its military. Or, moving to the seemingly opposite end of the spectrum, think if American corporations all followed the example of Apple, today among the most profitable and powerful corporations in the world, which even as its profits have soared has squeezed its suppliers to charge even less for the products and labour they provide, and in so doing ensure that hundreds of thousands of poor workers in China continue to work for ludicrously low wages in suicide-inducing jobs all so that more Americans can buy iPhones or iPads for $5 less than they’d otherwise pay.
Mark LeVine - How do you judge a State of the Union speech that begins with a lie? [Al-Jazeera, English]

Airport Security

Posted by Guest Blogger "Sayf Maslul" 

By "George Carlin"



"As far as I'm concerned, all their airport security, all the searches, the screenings, the cameras, the questions, is just one more way of reducing your liberty and reminding you that they can fuck with you any time they want. As long as you put up with it. As long as you put up with it."  [George Carlin]

Shine On

Posted by "CavalierZee" 

Digital Art by William "Spektyr" Laskorski

Shine On:


Mandala Ambarino:


Orbus:


Mandala Oro:


Ad Infinitum:


Phoenix Rising:


Ring Theory:

Weaving The Web Of Desire

Posted by "CavalierZee"

To hunt sweet Love and lose him
Between white arms and bosom,
Between the bud and blossom,
Between your throat and chin;
To say of shame—what is it?
Of virtue—we can miss it;
Of sin—we can but kiss it,
And it’s no longer sin:

To feel the strong soul, stricken
Through fleshly pulses, quicken
Beneath swift sighs that thicken,
Soft hands and lips that smite;
Lips that no love can tire,
With hands that sting like fire,
Weaving the web Desire
To snare the bird Delight.

[By Algernon Charles Swinburne, Before Dawn]

Eternal Swells

Posted by "CavalierZee" 

Artist "ATB"

Open Letter To The World

Posted by "Sayf Maslul" 

By "Anonymous" 

Background "Beethoven Moonlight Piano Music"



Greetings World, 

We are Anonymous. We stand at a unique time in our history, the rise of the Internet and computer technology have contributed to an unparalleled rate of prosperity for the First World. We have created for ourselves and empire unlike any other, a global network of constant trade and communication, a new age of technological advancement. We have come a long way from our humble roots in the Industrial Revolution and the days of Manifest Destiny. We are now pioneers on new digital frontiers expanding our domain from the quantum world to the far reaches of space.

And yet, the empire faces a crisis, a global recession, growing poverty, rampant violence, corruption in politics, and threats to personal freedom. As it was before in other times of crisis, the old stories have begun to repeat themselves. The half truths, this time repeated nightly on cable news and echoed through a series of tubes onto the Internet: the empire is strong, change is unwise, business as usual is the answer. In times of uncertainty there are those who seek to add to the confusion, to prey on our insecurities and fears. Those who would seek to keep us divided for their own gain. The pervasive strategy takes many very convincing forms: Liberals and Conservatives, Christians and Muslims, Black and White, Saved and sinner.

But something unexpected is happening. We have begun telling each other our own stories. Sharing our lives, our hopes, our dreams, our demons. Every second, day in day out, into all hours of the night the gritty details of life on this earth are streaming around the world. As we see the lives of others played out in our living rooms we are beginning to understand the consequences of our actions and the error of the old ways. We are questioning the old assumptions that we are made to consume not to create, that the world was made for our taking, that wars are inevitable, that poverty is unavoidable. As we learn more about our global community a fundamental truth has been rediscovered: We are not so different as we may seem. Every human has strengths, weaknesses, and deep emotions. We crave love, love laughter, fear being alone and dream for a better life.

You must create a better life.

You cannot sit on the couch watching television or playing video games, waiting for a revolution. You are the revolution. Every time you decide not to exercise your rights, every time you refuse to hear another view point, every time you ignore the world around you, every time you spend a dollar at a business that doesn't pay a fair wage you are contributing to the oppression of the human body and the repression of the human mind. You have a choice, a choice to take the easy path, the familiar path, to walk willingly into your own submission. Or a choice get up, to go outside and talk to your neighbor, to come together in new forums to create lasting, meaningful change for the human race.

This is our challenge:

A peaceful revolution, a revolution of ideas, a revolution of creation. The twenty-first century enlightenment. A global movement to create a new age of tolerance and understanding, empathy and respect. An age of unfettered technological development. An age of sharing ideas and cooperation. An age of artistic and personal expression. We can choose to use new technology for radical positive change or let it be used against us. We can choose to keep the Internet free, keep channels of communication open and dig new tunnels into those places where information is still guarded. Or we can let it all close in around us. As we move in to new digital worlds, we must acknowledge the need for honest information and free expression. We must fight to keep the Internet open as a marketplace of ideas where all are seated as equals. We must defend our freedoms from those who would seek to control us. We must fight for those who do not yet have a voice. Keep telling your story. All must be heard.

We are Anonymous
United as One,
Divided by Zero.
Expect us