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auf dem rechten Auge blind
Blind in the right eye. The accusation that for years state and federal German police failed to catch right-wing neonazi serial killers because of internal police failures that have yet to be...
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hohes Tier
“High animal.” Someone with an important job. Helmut Roewer, for example, the now-retired president of Thuringian Verfassungsschutz from 1994 to 2000. Spiegel-Online says his interests were “Wine,...
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Verfassungsschutz
“Constitution Protection.” The name for a federal German police agency that has state branches. I don’t know much about it. The name might be intended to convey the idea that federal police are needed...
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V-Mann, V-Frau
“V men” are police snitches in certain milieux. For a long time I thought V in this case stood for Verfassungsschutz, but apparently it stands for Verbindungs- or Vertrauens-? In the latter case, the...
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Ägide
Aegis. The Erfurt committee investigating the cell of neonazi serial murderers who only got caught posthumously (after they decided to commit suicide while setting their apartment on fire) has invited...
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Bundeskriminalamt, BKA
Federal-level German police. Like the Verfassungsschutz, the German police are managed in state and federal offices with some degree of mutual autonomy. Thirteen suspects are under investigation by...
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Bouffier
The slightly creepy governor of Hesse, which includes the financial metropole Frankfurt am Main. The guy he replaced, Roland Koch, was also slightly creepy. Bouffier it turns out was Hesse’s interior...
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Spusi
Yet another cute German abbreviation, this time for “Spurensicherung,” the “evidence securers” crime scene specialists. (SHPOO zee.)
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Anti-Terror-Datei
Central federal file of police and intelligence services’ information about potential and actual terrisss but also possibly about innocent burghers. Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich has said this...
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Zentrales Waffenregister
Central weapons register. Gun owners in Germany currently have to register their guns at several hundred (~550) small separate offices that don’t coordinate with one another. Interior Minister...
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DGSE; DCRI, DNRED, DPSD, DRM, Tracfin, Service du renseignement de la...
The French foreign intelligence service and the six agencies with which it shares phone and computer data it bulk-collects inside and outside France. Le Monde reported on 04 Jul 2013 that there is a...
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Bettgeflüster
“Bed whispers,” German title of the old movie “Pillow Talk” starring Doris Day and Rock Hudson. Ezra Klein’s blog on the Washington Post recently posted about different types of public and private...
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Gemeinsames Terrorabwehrzentrum, G.T.A.Z.
“Joint Terrorism Defense Center.” Apparently the German police and secret services have been working together at this institution since its founding in 2004 under poor Otto Schily. Many Germans are...
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Sittenpolizei
“Morals police.” For over thirty years, professional and amateur morals police in Iran have beaten women who appeared outside the home in clothing the morals police felt was inappropriate. Now, new...
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Berlin-Hohenschönhausen-Ausstellung
Permanent exhibit in the former Stasi interrogation prison at Berlin-Hohenschönhausen, where 40,000 East Germans were held prisoner. Includes photos of the prisoners, descriptions of how they were...
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Verjährungsfrist verlängern
Extending the statute of limitations period. At the Fourth World Conference on Doping in Sport in Johannesburg in November 2013, the World Anti-Doping Agency (W.A.D.A.) agreed to increase the ban on...
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Doch drohnenfähige Handydaten!
Cell phone data are droneable after all! Last summer Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst or BND, admitted they’d been sharing phone data with U.S. intelligence agencies...
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Patienteninformation & Patienteneinwilligung
“Patient information form and patient consent form,” often translated into English as “informed consent” which sounds like a single document rather than the German pair of patient information materials...
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Kanzleramtschef, ChefBK, Kanzleramtsminister
“Chief of the chancellory,” Angela Merkel’s chief of staff, whose duties include coordinating and controlling/monitoring Germany’s secret services as the boss of the federal government’s intelligence...
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NSA-Untersuchungsausschuss
N.S.A. investigative committee of the Bundestag, which began meeting on 03 Apr 2014. The committee’s chair is Clemens Binninger (C.D.U.), a former policeman. It is tasking itself with investigating the...
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