Subject: Podesta in Berlin this week
From: Alec Ross <[email-masked]>
To: John Podesta <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2014 12:01:44 +0200

John,

I understand you are headed to Germany this week.  Just returned from
Berlin myself last week.  Tough sledding on the NSA issues over there.
 Sharp
political problem for their leadership.  They need to show some progress
engaging USG on surveillance policy, but they understand the challenges
and don't want to risk alignment on critical interests.  Meanwhile, the
damage from loss of trust in the market is causing significant
disruptions -- losses for US vendors and over-spend on security for
German firms.  A central issue is the perception in the German business
community that NSA is engaged in widespread industrial espionage, that
crypto standards are hacked, and secure communications with US service
providers is non-existent.

On this issue of industrial espionage and commercial trust - I think we
have an opportunity to score points for both sides.  As a practical and
legal matter, we are already in broad agreement.  But implementing that
through the development of shared standards would heal wounds in both
politics and markets.  Not saying this would be easy - devil is in the
details.  But worth considering in light of your trip.  My former deputy
from State is at a think tank in Berlin these days (he has a German
wife) - and he has his fingers on the pulse and talks to many of the key
German leaders.  He developed the attached concept paper (2 pages) with
German politicos in mind.  Probably colors outside the lines of the
State Dept strategy - but worth a look.

I have no business interests/disclosures to make. Just an idea.

I shared my thinking with Merkel's CoS Altmaier and spokesman Steffen
Seibert.

Alec