They are irrelevant and a non-issue on the federal level (I cannot remember when they were last publicly discussed there, much less controversially discussed). They are about equally irrelevant on the state level and certainly also not controversially discussed there.
On the very local level (city, county, region) they can be an important issue – but the perspective is nearly always an economic one: The base as a large employer in a region that might grow or shrink or close down. Best city marketing approaches for getting Americans from a nearby base to come visit and buy stuff. It’s always stuff like that.
Ok, I guess I can think of one current somewhat heated issue that was recently discussed and that I noticed, living somewhat close to a base and all – but, again, only on a very local level: the US Army being allowed to fly drones for testing purposes (also outside of and between two of their bases). But even there the discussion is not exactly a shouting match and never even connected with any kind of argument to close bases.
I think the general consensus in Germany is that having the US as a tight ally is a good thing. And you don’t throw a tight ally out of your country, especially if what they are doing there is (at least perceived as) completely harmless. Sure, there might be widespread general disagreements with the US military strategy as a whole, but that does not, in general, lead people to want to throw out the baby with the bathwater, so to say.
I think you might be able to rally quite a few people around a hot button issue like the stationing of nuclear weapons in Germany (but I’m not even sure whether the US still does that), but throwing out the US? Not really.
If you are an American who wants to close all US bases in Germany quite a few German politicians would be indifferent or worried about the US-German relationship and many local politicians with a nearby base would be furious about you taking away all those jobs (not that the bases matter for the German economy in general in any significant way).
Sure, but there are not many left anyway. There has been some anger because of US spying and the US ignoring German law (flying people to torture centers via Germany).
It's as easy as just asking them to leave. While the bases re strategically useful for the US, they'd have a hard time labelling them necessary, given the current US-German relationship. But Germany won't ask, because they do some good and little harm.
A relevant point I think is that the bases survived the Iraq fiasco which Europe was broadly against. If the bases survived that, they will be there for a while yet.
When Tocqueville (Democracy in America) came to the US in the 1830's it was to study prison reform for the French government. He wrote about an experiment at a youth reformatory that was run democratically by the inmates. No one ever lost their right to vote no matter what they did, but if you behaved you got two votes and could affect the outcome of decisions more. Apparently this worked very well.
I was a little upset when I was forced to take typing in junior high. Now I think I should send them a thank you letter as I watch everyone hunt and peck.
Sierra games deserve my thanks. Hero's Quest, Space Quest, Kings Quest, Police Quest - all of the early games required a deep amount of typing, and some of the really early ones could get harsh about it (the v1's often didn't "pause" the game while you typed). I shed a tear when they moved to the mouse-only adventure games.
I hadn't thought about it before you asked, but this would be a perfect way to build up detailed information for biometric databases. You'd then use that with lower-fidelity sources, like video cameras.
You've got head shape, hand shape, height, shoulder width, BMI, and length of every major body segment. From there you can calculate all sorts of ratios to apply to people, and I'd bet you could make a pretty good guess at gait for motion analysis.
A database like this would also be proof against facial surgery; changing bone lengths is harder. So if you get a known terrorist once, you should be able to spot them much more easily in the future. And of course you'd keep the records indefinitely, because you never know who's going to turn out to be a terrorist. Or a drug mule. Or a political protester [1].
You asked a question. I gave you an answer. If you have a problem with that, try breathing into a paper bag for a while and see if that helps you calm down.
This technology could be plausibly misused for security purposes, and then perverted for political purposes, just like previous security technologies/bureaucracies have.
That shouldn't make you upset at the people pointing it out. Instead, direct your outrage at the portions of government that have previously done exactly this sort of thing.
I think the powers of the state to spy on its citizens should be minimal and tightly controlled, because historically they always have been abused, and modern technology makes it much easier to run a surveillance state. So if you're asking how far surveillance should go, I'd say, "quite a ways back."
I'm not particularly worried about it, though, not in the US. As my links indicate, we've been through waves of this before. As long as government stays in the hands of the people, I believe this sort of thing will come out, cause outrage, and get pruned back.
My real worry is the rising Gini coefficient and the rise in intergenerational correlation in wealth and power. If we end up with something like a ruling class, then that cycle of error and correction will fail. Some would argue that the failure to punish anybody for the crimes leading up to the economic crash is a sign we're already there, but I don't believe it's true yet.
Wiretapping and saving everything in the internet, including comms from allies and neutral parties, is foolishness or possibly a form of mental illness.
