[fromtheoutside]

Oh, but Germany isn't part of the five eyes alliance. I think that's what hurt us the most. Our government really believed in a German/American alliance. And then we found out we didn't belong into the inner circle.

And now the politicians finally realized what it means to give a foreign power access to your internet nodes. Sure we need the cooperation, but my guess is the politicians and the executive organs could not imagine the NSA would use this to harm our economy.

[antimagic]

fiveeyes is hardly a secret. It's existence isn't even classified. For example, I've sat in presentations with nationals from many countries, and the non-fiveeyes members would occassionally be asked to leave the room at the end to allow the fiveeyes nations to divulge some further information. But the other nations were told before leaving that the next part of the presentation was fiveeyes only.