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by creshal 874 days ago
Germany has been doing this since 1979, when mainframes were used to "find terrorists" – i.e., grab a bunch of companies' billing data, and filter for people who were "suspicious" by paying their bills in cash and couldn't be cross-referenced with other government databases, to find people who were (allegedly, surely) using fake identities.

Highly illegal, and put about 18,000 innocent people in the crosshairs of police investigations, but it's for The Greater Good, so nobody ever got punished for it, and today it's done by police agencies for such world-shaking crimes as speeding tickets, participation in legal demonstrations, and substance abuse.
1 comments
lifestyleguru 874 days ago
Meantime their former Chancellor moved straight to executive role in Gazprom. Germans - "looks legit nothing to see here, ve must catch all copyright violations and public media fee debtors".
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FirmwareBurner 873 days ago
Also Wirecard fraud happened underneath the noses of the authorities who were provided proof from journalists and they still couldn't see it.
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gmerc 873 days ago
The wirecard people were Russian intelligence and had access to the highest level of politics. Nothing to see here.

The head of the Constitutional Protection Agency (BfV) turned out to be a right wing radical who is hanging out with Neonazis and "Reichsbuergers". Nothing to see here

His second in command was present at a meeting to plan the deportation of "not pure germans" last year. Nothing to see here.

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alternatetwo 873 days ago
And the BfV was involved in funding and covering up a right extremist murder spree. Nothing to see here.

And they kept shredding files pertaining to this. Nothing to see here.

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lifestyleguru 873 days ago
Keine sorgen, Sie schaffen das. Das alles. Pre-pandemic dispute in Germany was absolutely toxic. Raising concern about any from the above was impossible. Being "concerned" was a straight way to be called "concerned citizen" ie. "Reichsbuerger". That was then, now I don't know either care.

> His second in command was present at a meeting to plan the deportation

I hope the meeting was not held in Wannsee.

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alternatetwo 873 days ago
That would be far too on the nose, so they decided to do it a few kilometres to the west.
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