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I'm shocked--shocked!--to find gambling going on here!
They pick on this guy and harass him with every chance they get to "send him a message" (they should know by now that doesn't work on him, but anyways). The US government really is extremely petty and vengeful. And that's just one of the many reasons why letting it have so much power over anyone in the world at anytime through mass surveillance is so dangerous.
The message is not meant for him, but for us. He is made into an example for others.
There's quite a lot more in the original article, if you read German (or use Google Translate):
http://www.berliner-zeitung.de/spionage-skandal/jacob-appelb...
Try to read this, even if using Google Translate.
The most important parts:
a) he cites a whole chain of events, like unknown people claiming they have been allowed entrance into his apartment by the landlord. (which is illegal in germany, btw.)
b) an interesting part where Applebaum does take a step back and reflects on his very own claims and the possibilty of reading too much into the chain of weird incidents. He describes that to combat that, he has a notebook to note down facts as they happen.
I feel shit just reading this. Imagine being the TARGET of such harrassment (by people, who, theoretically, have no qualms about murder), and still being able to laugh. Could you?
-- translated snippet follows:
On the 10th of October two women tried to get into my flat. They claimed that house management had given them the keys for a viewing, because they wanted to rent the flat. I called the house management - they knew of nothing and hadn't given out any keys.
Q: And that couldn't just have been a misunderstanding?
Yes, but ten days later there was another incident of someone messing around with my apartment door, at 3 o clock in the morning. Six days later the same. On the 11th of November a visitor noticed that persons in front of the house took notes about people going in and out. Sometimes there were people walking on the roof, but I've been told that's not unusual in Berlin (laughs).
-- edit: very end of the article:
Interesting interview:
- He obviously speaks german now quite fluently, so I assume he will stay in Berlin, in a much safer country.
- Obviously the CIA still tries to get hands on the Snowden data to know how much and what exactly the journalists have, to be prepared. So they still don't have this information. This could eventually lead to better NSA reforms, as they still have to fear the worst.
He obviously speaks german now quite fluently
How do you know he wasn't interviewed in English and his answers translated?
I don't think so, it's probably a translation of an interview conducted in English. Based on what I've seen of him in videos just a couple months ago, he's learning a bit (he did use and mispronounce the word Zersetzung), but probably nowhere near fluency by now.
He applied for a residence permit, but I'm not sure if he has it yet. It's kind of interesting that he and Laura Poitras and a few others have all wound up in Berlin. Obviously it's no perfect sanctuary, but it's probably still one of the safest places to be for people doing this kind of work.
Riiis you have been hellbanned. Contact admins and perhaps ask them what rule exactly you contravened with this one comment - the hellbanning system here is truly kafkian!
Being genuinely bad at posting would be one.
Presumably you don't have show dead turned on, here is their only post (just below here):
Why is this, when forces working with the German government itself can apparently swoop in unannounced? How is there any advantage to living in Germany? I'm genuinely interested in understanding.
I read the post. It's a bad post, and it could be a precursor to a toxic account. It's got the tone of a bad attempt at trolling. (It's at least clear the poster is either a bad troll or can't apply a modicum of critical thinking of their own.) HN has other information it can take into account when hell-banning somebody, like IP addresses, too. Go ahead and try making new accounts and see if you get hell-banned. Set them up from cafes and the like if you're worried about it being correlated with your IP address (and thereby treated as less likely to be a bad account). I've done this quite a few times recently and those accounts making one or two comments have never gotten hell-banned.
Couldn't disagree more.
Given his level or paranoia, I'm surprised he wouldn't have set up some sort of security camera that continually uploads to Amazon S3 or something. Video of these thugs would be much more valuable than the single bit of information that an alarm gives.
Because S3 is totally out of the reach of these adversaries.
That requires they (a) notice the camera, (b) dissect the software running it to determine to where it's uploading (which might be a more secure intermediary), (c) take action to delete the video, and (d) hope that he doesn't have another service running which backs up the video from S3 in realtime.
Yes, the NSA can do that, but it takes time and effort, and given that they couldn't even find/disable one of his mundane alarm systems, it's likely that the wouldn't have disappeared the video evidence.
...or have a small power outage or internet outage lasting a few hours.
As if every packet in and out isn't already scrutinized.
Instead of S3, it may be possible to do "small computer with harddrive hidden inside the house (furniture, walls, ceiling, etc) tapped into a power-line and connected over wifi.
Their options for finding that would be limited if they did not bring equipment to triangulate wifi devices with them. Limited to methods that would certainly leave a trace of their presence. If you set the camera up correctly, it might not even be immediately apparent that they had to look for the storage device (give the camera plenty of storage of it's own, so that it seemed likely that the images were being stored on the camera.)
Sure, they might come back next week with the equipment they need, but in the meantime you'll have your photographic evidence and a few days to go public with it.
Well, three alarm systems were shut down when he returned. Maybe, one of them was such one.
Still, if he noticed the changes right away he should have pressed charges against persons unknown so the police would examine his apartment for clues.
What a child like view
At this point, I would not be surprised to learn that: 1) all of these incidents are occuring, 2) the U.S. government (NSA/CIA/whatever) is behind them, and 3) the police (local/"federal"/whatever) are aware of the incidents and the USG's involvement and are either actively participating or simply allowing it to happen.
If all of the above were true, then all that might be accomplished by going to the police would be that the USG becomes aware of exactly what Appelbaum knows of their actions and, perhaps more importantly, what he doesn't know (assuming there have been additional incidents that he has not discovered).
Documenting the incidents as best as he can is possibly (one of) his best course of action(s). I think that I, personally, would also document them publicly in addition to a paper notebook, though.
He previously indicated that he had video. But what do you gain from releasing it?
The KGB painted the people they harassed as mentally ill and paranoid liars. If you have video, it backs up your claim against people who believe you made it all up.
You can't prove it was the government. And I don't see too many people claiming Appelbaum is a mentally ill paranoid liar.
It doesn't prove it was the government; it proves he didn't make it all up.
Nobody will believe a government spokesman who say that, yeah. That's why there are DARPA contracts for Twitter sock puppet armies for propaganda purposes. Get thousands of "people" on Twitter to agree that he's a bit nutty and it becomes a meme.
At best, like Greenwald, he can prove someone broke into his apartment. But, like Greenwald, no one really cares about that.
The important part, that it was the government, he cannot prove. The part that he can prove, that someone entered his apartment, doesn't matter.
It's always harder for an adversary when he doesn't know your countermeasures, and if Jakob Appelbaum publishes Video footage (or microphone recordings, photographs, whatever his fourth or fifth, or sixth alarm system provides) he'd give away this advantage. So currently the Americal agency trying to bug his flat, or probably the german Verfassungsschutz trying to suck up to them, have to guess if they have found and disabled all alarms, or indeed been recorded, or not.
That's probably the single thing claimed by the NSA that's true: It helps their opponents (e.g. us Germans) if we know the extent of their wiretrapping and other surveillance. Too bad it was mandatory to publish it to expose their morally wrong (and often illegal) activities.
Stasi's Zersetzung: "The Stasi perfected the technique of psychological harassment of perceived enemies known as Zersetzung. ... This often included psychological attacks such as breaking into homes and messing with the contents – moving furniture, altering the timing of an alarm, removing pictures from walls or replacing one variety of tea with another" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi#Zersetzung
It's just history repeating itself.
The Stasi perfected the technique, but that doesn't mean that anybody who uses it is on par with the Stasi. Psyching people out is natural human behavior. Heck, even Arnold Schwarzenegger figured out that stealing Mike Katz' lucky shirt before a competition might take off a few points.
Applebaum is probably less worried about his stuff being moved around to harass him and more worried about obtaining new computer hardware and a new place to live at this point. I really doubt that the main purpose of this attack was harassment.
You can speculate about the motives, the result though is difficult to argue.
I don't really understand - if use of the technique (and similar) is why the Stasi is as maligned as it is, then surely using the technique does put you on par? What would it take to put you on par then? Nationality? A mustache?
So, if the Stasi does something, and it is the reason they are maligned, and I do the same thing at all to any degree, you're saying I'm on par with the Stasi? Please help me understand your sentence.
Well, let's back up and look at the sport of golf, where the term "par" is commonly used. If I play the game, I'm golfing. Does that put me on par with Tiger Woods? No. In order to be on par with Tiger Woods, I need to be right up there matching Tiger Woods.
The argument that the _use of a technique_ puts the invaders (whoever they are) on par with the Stasi is fallacious. If you want to use hyperbole, go ahead. But don't claim it's logical just because it feels good.
Are you saying that harassment like this is not one of the reasons the Stasi are maligned? Of course it is...
Well, to be fair, the STASI was more extreme in many respects. Kinda hard to beat them, with there being informants basically everywhere, and a literal wall around the country. It's like being spied on and harrassed while in a prison. Maybe North Korea might be similar, I have no idea.
On the other hand we are stuck in this gravity well, with an adversary with unlimited reach and electronic eyes and ears everywhere. So the comparison may be much less far fetched than we'd like to believe. After all, the GDR had people who just "went along" and didn't mind any of the STASI stuff either; how is our situation any different? Some people not currently directly affected care, but I would guess all that don't, are not currently directly affected... because once this stuff turns on you, you're not in Kansas anymore, I bet you.
Sure, we are talking about one of many components of why the Stasi are maligned.
Basically this is not a "Hitler was a vegetarian; you're a vegetarian" type of scenario. Rather this is a "Hitler wrote a book blaming Jews for everything; you wrote a book blaming Jews for everything" scenario. Yes, writing an anti-semitic book is by no means Hitler's greatest crime, it barely even ranks on that list; but you can be sure it is very central to the reasons that he is maligned.
In other words, harassment by the Stasi is not an incidental attribute of the Stasi. It is one of many defining attributes of what the Stasi were.
Sure, the Stasi were more extreme in some respects. However, they'd piss their pants if they had the surveillance capabilities the NSA is using now.
If you use the technique, you become associated with others who use that technique. The use of "Stasi" here is comparable to saying a band sounds like The Beatles.
As for "par," you're using two different senses of the word. Your analogy could work by acknowledging that par in golf is a comparison to the estimate made by the course designers, not to other golfers. In this way, "on par with the Stasi" is a comparison to the behavior (née "estimate") of that group.
Two mathematicians in different disciplines are both mathematicians, even though their motivations and training are not exactly the same.
Arnold Schwarzenegger? http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1002-01.htm You cite that guy as some kind of super centered human? ("even Arnold Schwarzenegger")
Also, where does the power differential come into play? Arnold snagging the shirt from a competitor, that's cute; but try an adversary with a near unlimited budget and arsenal, and many, many, many people. Try being one person, living in a foreign country because you would feel even more unsafe at home.
This, is being a bully. Not as a "human", but as a machinery built of humans (which can take on radically different properties btw). To bring up Arnold is correct in a way, but not because it's "normal" in any sense other than chimpanzees hunting others for fun and profit is "normal". Fuck normal. The question is, do we at this point in time and going forward want that. That is always the question. Some call it civilization, or decency.
And as for being on par with the STASI: http://apps.opendatacity.de/stasi-vs-nsa/english.html
Your argument is kinda that it's not being the STASI because it's being a normal human being. Just pause and think about that. By your logic not even the STASI Zersetzung was actually STASI Zersetzung, because it's just normal individuals doing what normal individuals do. There is nothing you could not justify with that.
Fact is, if you were the target of this, you'd appreciate support, you'd love to see a change. But since you're not, you tell us what Appelbaum probably cares most about. He talks about how he realized how surveillance kills human relationships, how he lost many friends and even his girlfriend because they could NOT stand that pressure.
And you tell us it's not harrassment... just astonishing. Just no.
Where did I do that?
Again you misread me. It may be harassment, but what was my point about harassment? Read again please.
by saying "even Arnold Schwarzenegger". What does the "even" mean, then?
Another interesting thought is that he actually stole the shirt to demoralize, so for Zersetzungspurposes.
That's it's "natural", and therefore not Zersetzung. Not really much of a point if you ask me.
Actually if you watch Raw Iron, the making of Pumping Iron, the shirt stealing joke was set up for the documentary and wasn't by Arnold. It was done as a docu-drama, not a documentary. Pumping is like cumming, missing dad's funeral, etc weren't true.
Very important factoid!
Well, he can be worse too, I guess.
And no, the ends do not justify the means. Especially since the ends are shitty in this case too.
I had never heard of Zersetzung before and the link is very interesting. Thanks for the comment.
Could he harassment, but, on the other hand, plenty of governments would love to get their hands on the rest of the Snowden cache. This may be one such attempt. Besides the US, you have China and Russia.
For some background as to why people like Appelbaum or Poitras might be so paranoid, here he is describing the harassment he has suffered at the hands of US border agents in the past (because of being involved in the Tor project):
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/20/we_do_not_live_in_a http://www.democracynow.org/2013/6/17/long_before_helping_ex...
This sort of impunity to harass civilians who have not committed any crime is something you'd expect in a police state, not a functioning democracy. Sadly it seems the UK and US have now joined the ranks of countries who employ this sort of harassment routinely at the border.
Yeah, I don't think working on the Tor project is the reason. Tor was originally created by the US government.
Maybe not, though he did think it was at one point, and said he wouldn't stop working on Tor because of it (there's some on that in this transcript), but the interest might have been more because of wikileaks and a desire to infiltrate that network, not sure on the exact dates of all the stops, and after the Manning leaks wikileaks would probably be the main interest.
Whatever the reasons, I don't think it's justifiable to stop, question and search someone repeatedly like this without suspicion of a crime. If he's guilty of something, he should be charged, if not they shouldn't be using border agents for fishing expeditions and confiscating laptops/phones etc.
It's not. The US naval research lab still helps develop it.
You are assuming that the fact that one part of the US government works on something implies that another part may not take a special interest in someone outside government that is involved with other aspects of it.
I don't see why you'd jump to that conclusion at all.
(Note that I have no opinion about this specific situation)
The harassment is primarily because he was suspected of involvement with Bradley Manning and Wikileaks.
He really should familiarize himself with The Moscow Rules.
It's not paranoia when it's actually happening.
He purportedly has video of the bag men. When he was in the US his girlfriend woke up to another bag man watching her through night vision goggles, presumably while his partner installed bugs in the apartment while Appelbaum was out of town.
Wait she woke up to someone in her bedroom with night vision goggles on? Did she tell them to GTFO?
My understanding is that they were outside the bedroom window and she, terrified, tried to pretend she was still sleeping until they left.
Sometimes that's not about surveillance either. It's about making sure that they are seen through the window -- to instill some fear to their target.
[Edit] Hmm, seeing some comments below, I see this thing even has a name:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi#Zersetzung
That IS Guerilla Strategy then. Crazy. I hope he has videos about it and publishes these. He should install a 6th Alarm that shoots an electrified fisher-net and can shoot with a taser gun, in case the owner is detected too near.
It's interesting that I learned what guerilla strategy is from a robot in a science fiction movie.
Scene from the movie "Red Planet" from the year 2000: http://youtu.be/GltSAI25gaA?t=5s
Story in this scene: The reason why the AMEE didn't kill the Astronauts, was because it wanted leave a wounded back, to demotivate the moral of the others, so that they choose worse strategies to fight against AMEE's plans. One of the Astronauts asked, why didn't she kill all of us and only wound him. The other guy said: It's because she knows all about "Guerilla Strategy" and she applies that to reach her goals. She punctuated him, so that he will die, but slowly, which is to break our moral.
That's some scary shit there. Vivid mental images. Do you have source? I'd like to read more about this experience from first-hand account.
Totally agreed there: There's no level of security policy measures that would make this guy paranoid.
Pretty sure the "bag man" idiom doesn't mean what you think it does.
My mistake. I meant something along the lines of black-bag-job-man.
'You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.'
- Inigo Montoya
Paranoid? He seems perfectly lucid -- people that have lived under dictatorships, right wing political turmoil or "real existing socialism", know exactly what he's talking about.
Sadly, it now happens, all the more often, in Western "democracies" too.
Perhaps it should have been 'might appear to be paranoid', but I didn't mean it as an insult; rather as a description of the lengths they have to go to to protect their work. Sometimes they really are out to get you.
I'm not saying border harassment is OK, but it's a pretty big stretch to say the experience of Poitras or Appelbaum is an example of routine behavior. Both of them have a seriously adversarial relationship with the US government, it's hard to imagine anything between them and the government is routine.
Again, not saying border harassment is right, but I'm not sure it's part of a backslide away from democracy either. Up until relatively recently, openly going after the government of a world power and then frequently traveling there would result in a lot more inconvenience than some questioning at the border. Even in the "free world", I can't imagine many countries that would completely ignore things like that. Poitras and Appelbaum talk a lot about Germany, but if they focused on the German government the way they focus on the American government, I wonder how friendly German border folks would be to them.
i find comments like this a bit odd.
didn't it used to be the case that america was the good guy because they tolerated dissent?
these days it seems to be that "america is probably no worse than anyone else".
well, ok.
[edit:] and that's ok; i think it's what "we" (non-americans) think. the trouble is that you're not just one more bully. you're the strongest one in the room.
I think it is quite a bit worse than "just anyone" else.
Well I think there is a significant amount of room between having no problems at all and being "probably no worse than anyone else", but even the second option is a point worth making in these kinds of discussions because the implication always seems to be that America is especially bad from both a historical and global perspective (something I don't think is very accurate). We have room for improvement, but such improvement seems more likely if we're realistic about our problems.
There are people who think they are doing a good job breaking and messing people up.
Well payed people too, some are probably reading hacker news. Still working and toiling at NSA/FRA whatever, and thinking "damn those plebians why cant they understand what we do is cool is good, we mighty advanced than our enemies"
A US Internet activist and one of the people with access to Edward Snowden's documents, has told a Berlin paper that his apartment was broken into, saying he suspected US involvement.
GMAFB. The Snowden documents would be hugely valuable to _any_ government or large criminal organization (think drug cartels) that could get their hands on them. If you admit you have access to them you are painting a target on your back for groups beyond just the US government.
Large criminal organizations don't have to stick to the "sneak in and try to be unnoticed" tactic as closely.
I'm not sure of that. One big theme in intelligence / counterintelligence is that it isn't necessarily what you know. It's how you know what you know. Secretly having a copy of the Snowden documents is much more valuable than having a copy of the Snowden documents and everyone knowing that you have them.
E.g. If I am the U.S. and I want to manage some agents in Iran, I might have to alter my strategy if I know Iran has the Snowden docs. I think you can s/Iran/Sinaloa Cartel/ and it still makes sense.
Is there much evidence that large criminal organizations care about the standard themes of intelligence / counterintelligence?
yes.
The leadership of the Los Zetas Cartel, the largest and most powerful cartel in Mexico, comes almost exclusively from special forces and intelligence backgrounds.
According to a number of leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel that have been charged in US courts, the CIA has been providing material support and training to The Sinaloas since 2008 in an attempt to offset explosive growth of the Zetas.
Los Zetas are hardly famous for a subtle approach. Are they actually operating like intelligence agencies?
It seems to me that even if they have the knowledge, they don't think it is worth the effort in practice.
Los Zetas have built a country-spanning network of radio repeaters using kidnapped engineers. They are clearly cognizant of information security.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/11/zeta-radio/
But anyone seeking valuable info might want to stay unnoticed: no need to alarm/alert others — Applebaum, his allies, or other security services — prematurely. Peek first, then decide whether what's discovered is best known secretly, or not.
It doesn't say he said he thinks they were looking for the Snowden documents, does it. Why wouldn't the USG be interested in what he might have on his computer? You think it's more likely that Iran or some drug cartel is behind stuff like, uhh, hiring 2 German speaking women to pretend they received keys to his apartment, etc.? GMAFB indeed.
So basically what he has access to every single government on this planet wants access to. Not to mention a number of criminal or opportunist organizations.
I'm not sure why everyone is assuming it's just the US government that's after him. This actually sounds pretty sloppy. I'd be surprised if the NSA haven't already used one of their zero-day exploits to install key-loggers on his computers and phones.
Given the incredibly bad security at the NSA, and the number of contractors with access, I think you can take it as given that Russia and China already have access to these documents.
Snowden indiscriminately leaked a huge trove of classified information to the press. Governments desperately want to know what has been compromised and what has not. What Snowden stole, they want to steal back, or at least catalog. Is there honor among thieves?
So, arrest Snowden then, if that becomes possible. Invading the home of someone who is not guilty of a crime is an unacceptable escalation by the governing state.
Appelbaum is in possession of stolen information. He is being surveilled and surreptitiously searched like any common suspect might be. The FBI conducts secret sneak and peaks all the time, legally. Public arrests may or may not happen, but that's not the game right now. The first order of business is identifying who has what information and with whom they might be sharing it. An arrest would cause any extant network or conspiracy to go further underground.
?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sneak_and_peek_warrant
What would be the equivalent of that in Germany? Not saying there is none.
I doubt that the FBI (or any other US authority) is allowed to operate in any state outside the USA. Similar with all other countries.
It's easy enough to engage the local authorities, but if they won't cooperate, a unilateral op. in the name of national security is not unheard of.
"Easy enough?" I am also not sure if that is really so easy. We are not talking about a terrorist here.
Applebaum has access to stolen information, but what proof do you have that he is in possession of it?
Given his background with Tor it seems likely that it is just stashed somewhere in the cloud.
So, he had 4 alarms and not a single camera that streams video to an offsite server? I am not saying he is lying or anything like that, just find my self saying "WTF" when I read that.
Where did you read he doesn't have such a camera/stream?
The english article mentioned nothing about it. I can now see that there is a German article with a lot more info. Sadly I do not read german and google translate is a poor substitute. If he does have a stream, can some one link to it, if it's public.
I didn't mean to claim it says that in the German article; but unless it outright states he doesn't have a camera, just that it doesn't mention details about his "intrusion detection methods" doesn't mean he doesn't have a camera, right? Maybe I'm splitting hairs.
If by stream you mean his Twitter, here you go: https://twitter.com/ioerror
It is not mentioned (in either the English article or the original German) exactly what his "alarms" are. It is quite possible that (at least) one of those involves recording video but we can't know for certain. In addition, I certainly can't blame Appelbaum for not publicly describing just what his "alarms" are.
Just because the article doesn't say that he has video does not mean that he doesn't have it. In other words, as the saying goes, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence!".
Probably US agents were trying to get access to some of Snowden's archive. I'm not sure harassment was intended either.
I'm keen to say thought, that Snowden is winning this as the time goes by and NSA is loosing ground time and again. I just don't know how this whole surveillance thing, will work out on the next elections. You have the Obama administration clearly embarrassed but ultimately unwilling making any substantial change in the patriot act or it's powers. On the other hand, Republicans are the ones usually advocating greater surveillance, more police state, etc. It's a full-frontal battle of central authority (Congress vs Population) vs democracy.
Accepting the fact that NSA is wrong would be admitting that Snowden's ultimate sacrifice[1] was justified and welcomed, and that's even more expensive than putting an end on NSA's surveillance for a political team, government or party.
[1] IMHO The guy did a huge sacrifice. I understand the controversy by some overzealous patriots to treat him as a traitor, but in my view he screwed his life over something he believed.
It won't have any effect on the next elections except maybe a few people here and there to be elected to champion for the rights.
The majority of the NSA programs were operated with both Republican and Democratic blessing.
When I was looking for a flat in Berlin in 2003. I was given a key and the address of an obviously not empty appartment. When I opened the door that was clear immediatly.
Since then I alway change the lock in the main door. This has also the advantage that I can go for something better than what the landlord deems apropriate. Last time I went for EVVA 3KS. Is that still state of the art?
I am not saying this happened here.
I'd check your tenancy laws, that's certainly not legal in some countries. I would be evicted if I did that.
Where are you?
Australia.
"A party to a tenancy agreement who changes any external door or window lock must as soon as practicable give a key to the lock to the other party."
"A tenant who wishes to change a lock in a master key system must obtain the landlord's consent before changing that lock."
Our tenancy law is extremely specific and breaches of it either end in termination, mediation, or disciplinary action against the landlord. It's very effective so long as long as everybody understands their rights and responsibilities. I know of people who've changed their locks and been evicted as a direct result.
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/vic/consol_act/rta1997207...
Interesting. And frightning. So your landlord always has access to your home? That is certainly different in Germany.
Are you allowed to install an alarm system and not give him the code?
He is not allowed to enter any time, I guess? Or is he?
Entering without my permission (or 2 weeks notice) is grounds for immediate termination of my lease (see the link below). Installing an alarm system and not giving them the code isn't covered, but I would be extremely unwise to do that. There's a lot covering the tenant if the landlord does enter without permission, and the only time I've had a problem with it lead to a lot of voluntarily refunded rent. It's not really thought of as strange, though I would prefer to have my own locks personally.
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/vic/consol_act/rta1997207...
Besides intentionally sending a message, what were they thinking? This is the guy who crosses borders with no hard drive in his laptop and the Bill of Rights written to the block device of his USB thumb drives.
I would think, in addition to governments, organized crime would literally kill to get their hands on the information that Snowden has. Not only to resell, but to understand the threat to their own livelihood.