It is symbolic of the nature of the struggle that so much information comes our way that can't be tracked for accuracy for any number of good reasons, including that of ritual anonymity. It seems there are legions of those who play footsy - "liebaeugeln" is the German word, meaning ". . . flirting with your eyes". Few people are willing to come forward and say: "Count me in. My name is such-and-such." The following was sent to us by a dissident Austrian website, Burgerforum, http://www.c2.net/~bs-org, run by what seems like a runaway hothead, one of the few dissident Net activists in Europe who is known by his name and his zeal. No lookeeloo, Franz Glasl! Sometimes he makes me laugh; more often, though, he makes me shudder because of his outspokenness. You know exactly where he stands. I am amazed that he is still around. Below is what he sent me yesterday:
"Make no mistake who controls Germany today. And the ban of encryption software is NOT to stop organized crime or things like that; it's a political question. The German Holocaust payments MUST continue. It's essential for the existence of Israel. Any Holocaust debate (about) lies MUST be stopped at any price. Let the German public and the sheeple pay forever and die stupidly in the end - that is what the German politicians really think. It was not possible to stop the Zundel-Info and it was not possible to stop about 300 more political incorrect web sites (get the list from our server http://www.c2.net/~bs-org.) (T)he German Government, with the back against the wall, had to come up with another method of censoring the only free media available in Germany. It's as simple as that. If you can, send protest email to the German politicians, but it will not help much because the order comes from other organizations."
He said more, which I have mercifully deleted, but the following came with this e-mail, and I am passing it on as having come from minas_tirith@nym.alias.net. I don't know the original source. I think, however, that it is an interesting and telling bit of e-mail describing Germany, so often prefaced sanctimoniously as the ". . . freest, strongest and most prosperous democracy in Europe after the liberation by the Allies . . . " spiel:
Subject: ALERT: GERMANY IS GOING TO BAN STRONG CRYPTO This is to inform you of upcoming political activities of the German government with regard to legal regulations of the distribution and use of cryptographic technology, including software (such) as PGP or the like. According to brief notices published today by the weekly newsmagazine "DER SPIEGEL" as well as by some daily newspapers, last week a secret meeting of high-ranked officials was closed with an urgent recommendation in favour of a strongly restricted key-escrow crypto regulation. The list of participators is said to have included Mr. Peter Frisch, who is the head of the German Verfassungsschutz (a secret service responsible for counteracting domestic anti-constitutional activities in Germany), as well as a Secretary of State delegated by the minister of domestic affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany, Mr. Kanther, and other Secretaries of State delegated by the local governments of all of the 14 States of which Germany is comprised of. It is said that up to now there is only a draft proposal which will be subject to further consul(t)ations of the Cabinet of the German government. However, there are rumors saying the German Chancellor, Mr. Kohl, intends to make decisions immediately after the Christmas break in early January, 1997. The envisaged crypto regulation would impose a *general ban* on all distribution and/or use of cryptography with regard to the German territory, including the German part of the internet. This would, of course, also affect PGP. After such law would have entered into force, even downloading PGP or handing over a disk with a PGP copy would be illegal. Legal use of cryptography would then be granted if and only if a general license has been obtained by the manufacturer and/or distributor of crypto equipment from some dedicated authority for that crypto software and / or the crypto device. This license will, in particular, require that 1) the secret keys are always escrowed by depositing them in a secret official database which is accessible by secret services and law enforcement authorities, and 2) also the source code of the crypto software is deposited. Private as well as commercial use of cryptography will be licensed only under these restrictions . . . This means that anyone who actually has access to the secret key escrow database, whether legal or not, would be able to monitor all intercepted encrypted traffic and would as well be able to fake any digital signature. . . A broad discussion among relevant experts outside secret services and law enforcement authorities has shown that such crypto ban is useless for fighting against crime. This in particular holds because criminals might use steganography. Moreover, it is not very likely that criminals will decide to make use of any licensed crypto devices, knowing that the secret keys are escrowed. But why how and here this nervous attempt of the German government to push back the ghost into the bottle? They seem to feel that it is just only a question of months, or maybe one year or so, until strong cryptography is so widespread that any attempt to ban it would inevitably fail. . . . Most of the private people in Germany are not aware of the internet and any privacy problems related therewith. Please note that Germany in general is five up to ten years behind the U.S. with regard to penetration of the internet into everyday life. Moreover, there is a big public discussion on organized crime and domestic security promoted by right-wing politicians . . ." (end of e-mail)
So what that means is that there is no more pretending. Three hundred dissident websites, in no small measure headed by the Zundelsite, are forcing the nefarious forces behind the government of Germany to drop the pious mask of being a "democracy" and advertising to the world just who runs whom - and why. Ingrid
Thought for the Day: "A Khazar Jew should never head the Christian Democratic Party (CDU) nor be elected Chancellor of Germany." (Jan van Helsing in "Secret Societies and their Power in the 20th Century" - a book that has been banned in Germany after it sold more than 100,000 copies in a short time.)