During the Cold War, Berlin was one of the most spy-ridden cities in the world. Now it\u2019s the place where people go to escape government surveillance.<\/i><\/p>\n
An international cadre of privacy advocates is settling in Germany\u2019s once-divided capital, saying they feel safer here than they do in the United States or Britain, where authorities have vowed to prosecute leakers of official secrets.<\/p>\n
Documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras, who was one of former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden\u2019s main conduits of leaked data, lives In Berlin, they have settled in a counterculture paradise, home to hackers\u2019 clubs, cheap rent and a fiercely supportive local population that in 2011 gave more than 10 percent of the seats in its regional parliament to the Pirate Party, a political organization that seeks to preserve Internet and information freedoms.<\/p>\n It is an ironic twist for a \u00adsometimes-bleak city that was once better known as a backdrop to John le Carr\u00e9 novels. The American listening post atop Teufelsberg hill, once the most important U.S. vantage point from West Berlin into Iron Curtain communications, now stands abandoned, fabric from its torn radar domes flapping in the wind. The spy swaps that once made Glienicke Bridge world-famous have receded into memory.<\/p>\n Now, many here hope that the city could eventually become home to Snowden himself, who has a one-year visa in Russia but met with German lawmaker Hans-Christian Stroebele in Moscow this month<\/a> about the possibility of assisting a German investigation into the alleged U.S. monitoring of Chancellor Angela Merkel\u2019s cellphone<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe whole vibe of Berlin is open to these kinds of developments,\u201d said Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a German technology and privacy advocate who was a spokesman for WikiLeaks before he split with the organization in 2010. \u201cWe are an economically successful country. But Berlin is an alternative center. And the intersection of those two things makes it a very good place\u201d to push for privacy and against surveillance.<\/p>\n Harrison is living in hiding.<\/p>\n
\nhere now. So does Jacob Appelbaum, a former spokesman for WikiLeaks. They were joined this month by Sarah Harrison<\/a>, a top WikiLeaks activist who stayed at Snowden\u2019s side for months in Moscow and now says she fears being harassed by the government if she returns to her native Britain.<\/p>\n