Unauthorized collection of data is a crime, and there hasn't been much scandal. Fairly impossible to be certain, but there's no reason to suspect it is occurring.
This article reminded me of what Bruce Greenwald said in an interview [0]:
If you look at a company like Deere, making equipment is a small part of what they do. A lot goes into putting it to work and making sure it works. A lot of the company is driven by local software. Because the equipment lasts longer, the secondhand markets are a big deal. Those markets are local. For financing, you need local information so you can know the good risks. Imagine that in Illinois, 90% of the tractors and harvesters and seeders are made by Deere. Who will have the best service? Which second-hand market will be the most dense and therefore easiest to sell? Who will have the best information and financing? Deere. Kubota will have a hard time trying to break into that market. And Deere, even if it temporarily suffers in sales, has a service base that means it’s not going to compete on price.
Based on the article, it seems that the German government combined foreign and signals intelligence into one agency, the BND. In the US, however, Truman separated them into the CIA [0] and the NSA [1], respectively. Thus, is there a specific reason for BND's dual role?
The BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst) is civilian federal foreign intelligence, the BfV (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz) is civilian federal domestic intelligence. It was probably not a great idea for e.g. diplomacy if Germany had loads of foreign intelligence agencies after WW2.
In the US, you have way more agencies. The five most famous are Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), and National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) [0]. Germany does have other military intelligence agencies, such as Kommando Strategische Aufklärung or Militärischer Abschirmdienst (domestic military intelligence). They are subdivisions of the German military (Bundeswehr). Some of the US agencies are child agencies of the DoD. So arguably it's similar?
And because Europe is countries but the US is states, it isn't really comparable in size, so splitting these roles into different agencies makes less sense. There are benefits of having only one agency/organisation, e.g. re-assigning personnel and easier cooperation (inner-agency vs inter-agency).
They each have their own Verfassungsschutz. Anything beyond that would require new laws. And even Bavaria doesn't quite dare to step into Stasi territory.
Based on his bio [0], Khosrowshahi seems like a more apt CEO pick for Airbnb instead of Uber. Thus, I think that someone with a more extensive experience in the transportation industry such as Kathryn Marinello (CEO of The Hertz Corporation) [1] or David Abney (CEO of UPS) [2] is more suitable for the job.
this. It's not even transport, its the logistics piece. That original vision of "the car is in continuous motion, delivering ____". That fill in the blank is what gives Uber it's high valuation, not necessarily its dominance of ridesharing.
Recently, Waymo and Lyft launched a self-driving vehicle partnership [0]. With Trump nomination of Derek Kan (Lyft General Manager in Southern California) to serve as Under Secretary of Transportation for Policy [1], would it ease Waymo path towards autonomous car supremacy?
