Germany Brings Back the Stasi!

Chris is outraged by a recent 60 Minutes segment from Germany that he compares to a modern-day Stasi operation. He exposes how German authorities are collecting data on citizens' online activities—enforcing censorship reminiscent of autocratic regimes—and contrasts it with the free speech values we cherish in America. Markowski also recommends the German film The Lives of Others to illustrate life under oppressive surveillance. www.watchdogonwallstreet.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
I was absolutely horrified, horrified, and I highly recommend you
go and you watch watching online sixty Minutes from this
past week where sixty minutes is over in Germany and
it's like a puff piece. It's like a puff piece

(00:36):
for the freaking stazzi man. It's like the East German
secret Police are back and sixty Minutes is following around,
following around these German prosecutors. It's like a damn industry
there who are collecting data and files on German citizens

(01:01):
and what they post online and whether it's not offensive
and whether that they made fun of somebody. You can
get fun, you can go to jail for reposting something
a meme. I don't want. We should not be defending
that country. They no longer align with the United States

(01:24):
and our beliefs is a Now. Granted there are plenty
of people here in the United States that would love
this is how sad it's become there are a lot
of people here in this country that would love censorship.
Anything that they don't believe in, they want censored again,
frightening again. I'm in the free speech business, in the

(01:44):
free speech business, and I've said this time and time again.
I may disagree with you wholeheartedly, vehemently, everything you have,
everything that you believe in or have to say, but
I don't believe that anybody should shut you up. I
believe you have the right to say it, and quite frankly,
that's what's made our country great, and a lot of

(02:05):
people don't want that. I've been censored during COVID, oh yeah, completely.
You know, the algorithm shut us off. We had to
basically start over and trying to rebuild up our algorithmic credentials.
So we're nowhere even near that yet. They didn't anything
that you put out there in regards to against the
establishment COVID that they shut it down. They shut it down.

(02:28):
Then it's the fact we all know that now, but
in Germany they've taken it to this extreme. And again
watch it. Watch it. You know you also have to
watch too. I'm gonna give you a film recommendation right now.
This movie came out I don't know. Two thousand and four,
two thousand and five. It's German film. It's fantastic. It's

(02:50):
called The Lives of Others and it's a story about
life inside East Germany before the UH the Wall came
down and what it was like. And it's basically the
same thing. I mean, they have an industry there. It
was sixty minutes is like, oh yeah. And around the

(03:11):
country we got fifty other raids taking place where the
police are going into people find them taking their electronic
devices for voice in their opinion. I think about this
is something that we take for granted here in the

(03:33):
United States. You know, we're told, oh, you know, you
gotta be careful autocratic regimes there in the Middle East,
with these kingdoms and what they can say and what
they can't say, and oh no, and what they do
in China and what they do in Russia. How about
what they do in Europe, what they're doing right now

(03:57):
in Germany. We don't have anything, nothing in common with that, nothing,
nothing else that's foreign Watchdog on Wall Street dot Com