The experiences under the Nazis and Stasi, he explained, had made modern-day Germans wary of electronic surveillance. And the Snowden revelations had only fed those suspicions. “If data is collected, it can always be abused,” he said. “It’s important that, as we operate around the world, we remember that governments can change over time. Look what happened here. Data collected about people—their political, religious, and social views—can fall into the wrong hands and cause all sorts of problems.”
