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Cyber talk

Michael KniggeJune 27, 2014

It is hardly ever wrong to talk to each other. So in that sense the US-German cyber dialogue is welcome and won’t do any harm. But a closer look at the event’s history shows that it won’t produce tangible results.

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Deutsche Welle Michael Knigge
Image: DW/P. Henriksen

To put the cyber dialogue that kicks off today in Berlin between the US and Germany into its proper perspective one must go back to the summer of last year. It was in August 2013 that then-Chancellory Chief Ronald Pofalla who also served as the government's intelligence coordinator stated that Washington had offered Berlin a no-spy agreement.

Germany and the US, said Pofalla, would now go ahead and negotiate such a deal that would ban both countries from spying on each other. News of the planned no-spy deal spread like wildfire as it would have been a momentous consequence of the much criticized surveillance of the German Chancellor and German citizens by the NSA.

Faltered deal

But it quickly became clear that the envisaged no-spy deal would never happen. US officials and intelligence experts were perplexed by the idea from the start. Subsequent talks between top German and American intelligence officials in Washington started in the fall 2013, but didn't get anywhere.

By early 2014 it was evident that the US would not sign a binding no-spy agreement with Germany. It was Berlin's new Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier who, after a visit with his American counterpart John Kerry in February in Washington, publicly acknowledged the impossibility of a no-spy deal and shifted gears.

Instead of an agreement he suggested the US and Germany start a so-called cyber dialogue to discuss diverging perspectives on issues like security and privacy on both sides of the Atlantic. The Obama administration agreed to such a forum which paved the way for today's first cyber dialogue session.

To be clear, a cyber dialogue between Berlin and Washington is useful. Establishing a forum that brings together experts, officials and civil society representatives for a broad transatlantic debate on cyber topics or any other issue is never a bad idea.

Legal void

The problem is that a dialogue is no replacement for a bilateral agreement or a legal framework. What triggered the plan for a no spy deal after all was the laudable goal to protect German citizens from mass surveillance by the NSA.

That failed spectacularly because of Washington's total resistance and embarassed Berlin which had pushed for it. The latest cyber dialogue cannot fill the void of the necessary legal protection for German citizens of the NSA. Instead it looks like Washington's face-saving gesture for Berlin.