German Domestic Security Agency Competes With NSA

Posted: 8/7/2014

Just read “Heimliche Handy-Ortung Verfassungsschutz verschickt Zehntausende „stille SMS“ Mit sogenannten „stillen SMS“ versucht der Verfassungsschutz, Personen zu orten und Bewegungsprofile von Verdächtigen zu erstellen. Mehr als 50.000 Kurzmitteilungen wurden in den vergangenen sechs Monaten verschickt.” (German language)

According to this article the German Domestic Intelligence Service (Bundesverfassungsschutz or Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution) has been using more than 50,000 of silent/hidden text messages to profile or track the movements of persons in Germany  just in the first six months of 2014.

Similar, the German FBI (Bundeskriminalamt) also uses this technology on a large scale. The German border protection service (Bundesgrenzschutz) would not even disclose its use of it.

Were the German officials just hypocrites when they blamed the NSA?