Panel Discussion with William Binney, NSA-Whistleblower and Klaus Eichner, former Stasi-Officer on Thursday, Mai 15th 2014, 7:30 pm at the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Friedrichstraße 50 (4. Stock, Veranstaltungssal 4.24) 10117 Berlin.
Edward Snowden’s revelations launched a formerly unprecedented investigation into the National Security Agencies spying practices around the world. It is now known to the world that the NSA attempts to intercept and monitor virtually all of the communication on the planet, targeting everybody from individuals, to journalists and leading politicians alike. The constant surveillance of German telecommunication by US secret services - sometimes in partnership with the German government, sometimes targeting it - is especially threatening to journalists, who need to keep their own investigative research from prying eyes and protect their sources.
But how is the US spying on German citizens, how is it organized? What does surveillance have for an effect on the lives and work of people, who need to be certain that their communications remain private?
The Wau Holland Foundation and Reporters Without Borders Germany would like to invite you to a discussion on the aforementioned topics with notable experts on the NSA and its internal workings in relation to German telecommunications.
William Binney worked with the National Security Agency for 32 years and served as its technical director. He is known to be one of the best code breakers in the world. In 2001 he resigned to protest against the NSA’s using his telecommunication interception tools against American citizens. He accused the NSA of breaking the US constitution with this practice.
Klaus Eichner served as a staffer at the Ministry for State Security in the former GDR from 1957 to 1990. Starting as an officer for counterintelligence he joined the reconnaissance department in 1974. As a leading analyst, he focused on US intelligence agencies and their information gathering practices in (West) Germany. Together with Andreas Dobbert he authored the book “Headquarters Germany” about US spying agencies in Germany. His new book “Imperium ohne Rätsel” will be coming out in June.
Holger Stark is a journalist with Der Spiegel and has been reporting on topics of national security and secret services for more than ten years. He is one of Der Spiegel’s leading investigative journalists collaborating on the NSA and Snowden’s revelations. Together with his colleague Marcel Rosenbach, he is the author of the newly-released “Der NSA-Komplex”.
John Goetz is an investigative TV-journalist with the NDR (Public Television), and a journalist with Süddeutsche Zeitung. His project “Secret Wars” showed how the US military and secret services use Germany as a critical base of operations for the “War on Terror”.
The panel will be moderated by Andy Müller-Maguhn, who is a data journalist and runs buggedplanet.info. He is a member of the board of the Wau Holland Foundation.
The discussion will be held in German and English and will be translated simultaneously.
