German ZDF Interview with Barack Obama

Good evening ATS,

this is the recent Interview with U.S. President Barack Obama by Claus Kleber for German TV station ZDF on 18th of January 2014, regarding the deteriorating German-American relations due to U.S. mass-surveillance and industrial-espionage upon Germany.

I have no idea how much media attention this got on the other side of the pond (if any at all, given the fact that Barack Obama's performance was evaluated as "poor" by the majority of viewers), so I thought I'd post it here for debate / entertainment.


English Transcript (pdf)

The video will not load for me in the states. Hopefully just a typo on the video URL and not censored...

ETA: Never mind you fixed it. Watching now!


ETA2: Seems he is just trying to allay fears for Germans. I can't really comment as I'm not a German citizen, but I could see how his words could be looked at as skirting the issues instead of smacking them down head on.

reply to post by ColCurious


For a president who ran on a promise of government transparency, he is far from it. He could have made his mark on the presidency if he would of stuck by his promises. Instead, he has just carried on the same government secrecy and trampled on constitutional rights just like his predecessor George W. If he had any real belief of government transparency, he would have immediately pardoned Snowden and Manning, and call it what it is "whistle blowing". He would also have come down further on the NSA and forced an Investigation into the Bengazi attack. If he really wanted to wave the flag of transparency, he would have immediately called for a new and private investigation into 9/11.

So looking at his track record, I would take whatever he says with a grain of salt. He's just calming fears and covering for the NSA. Actions speak louder than words, when it comes to politicians.

reply to post by WeRpeons

WeRpeons
So looking at his track record, I would take whatever he says with a grain of salt. He's just calming fears and covering for the NSA.

And that is how his speech was widely recieved here. Nothing but bad excuses.

He brought up the old arguments for surveillance we already know are false / useless, then he makes a brief remark about German history with surveillance states but goes on and uses the same arguments the SED socialists used.

If he wanted to regain trust he achieved the opposite of what he tried to do.