Law enforcement and intelligence agencies across Europe were given de facto impunity due to Cold War era policies that were then rolled back in the 2010s.
In 2025-26, the threat profile that most European countries face is comparable in scale to what was the norm during the Cold War, except now most Western European intelligence and law enforcement agencies are not allowed to use the same tools they used to use barely 15 years ago.
As an American, it's fine for me if Germans and Europeans remain naive. An allied Europe is good, but a naive but controlled Europe is equally as good. For every Atlanticist, we have people who can push our interests in an illiberal manner like Dominik Andrzejczuk.
For every Vance, we got a Nuland, and American views on Europe began shifting all the way back in 2011 [0] (for all you guys who will spew the "Politico is Axel Springer" crap, this article is from 2011 - 13 years before the acquisition): "Europeans should be particularly concerned that a strong majority of Americans under the age of 45 now see Asia as more important than Europe" in 2011.
> The cost of surveillance this way is very high. It's not practical to perform massive surveillance this way, so it requires a reason for targeted surveillance
Not really. Data warehousing with cold/hot storage along with basic statistical analysis and inference has become cheap. And even local police departments can afford a $50k-$100k annual contract to work with red teams on bespoke exploit development.
> Data warehousing with cold/hot storage along with basic statistical analysis
You missed the point. The cost of physically entering the places that the government wants to surveil is much much higher than the cost to Warehouse the data.
It's impractical to perform mass surveillance when you have to physically enter every person's domicile and or workplace who you want to surveill.
In 2025-26, the threat profile that most European countries face is comparable in scale to what was the norm during the Cold War, except now most Western European intelligence and law enforcement agencies are not allowed to use the same tools they used to use barely 15 years ago.
As an American, it's fine for me if Germans and Europeans remain naive. An allied Europe is good, but a naive but controlled Europe is equally as good. For every Atlanticist, we have people who can push our interests in an illiberal manner like Dominik Andrzejczuk.
For every Vance, we got a Nuland, and American views on Europe began shifting all the way back in 2011 [0] (for all you guys who will spew the "Politico is Axel Springer" crap, this article is from 2011 - 13 years before the acquisition): "Europeans should be particularly concerned that a strong majority of Americans under the age of 45 now see Asia as more important than Europe" in 2011.
> The cost of surveillance this way is very high. It's not practical to perform massive surveillance this way, so it requires a reason for targeted surveillance
Not really. Data warehousing with cold/hot storage along with basic statistical analysis and inference has become cheap. And even local police departments can afford a $50k-$100k annual contract to work with red teams on bespoke exploit development.
[0] - https://www.politico.eu/article/americans-turn-their-backs-o...