Der Spiegel in the context of "Investigative journalism"

During the 2010s, international media reports revealed new operational details about the Anglophone cryptographic agencies' global surveillance of both foreign and domestic nationals. The reports mostly relate to top secret documents leaked by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The documents consist of intelligence files relating to the U.S. and other Five Eyes countries. In June 2013, the first of Snowden's documents were published, with further selected documents released to various news outlets through the year.

These media reports disclosed several secret treaties signed by members of the UKUSA community in their efforts to implement global surveillance. For example, Der Spiegel revealed how the German Federal Intelligence Service (German: Bundesnachrichtendienst; BND) transfers "massive amounts of intercepted data to the NSA", while Swedish Television revealed the National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) provided the NSA with data from its cable collection, under a secret agreement signed in 1954 for bilateral cooperation on surveillance. Other security and intelligence agencies involved in the practice of global surveillance include those in Australia (ASD), Britain (GCHQ), Canada (CSE), Denmark (PET), France (DGSE), Germany (BND), Italy (AISE), the Netherlands (AIVD), Norway (NIS), Spain (CNI), Switzerland (NDB), Singapore (SID) as well as Israel (ISNU), which receives raw, unfiltered data of U.S. citizens from the NSA.

Servicewüste (German pronunciation: [ˈsœːɐ̯vɪsˌvyːstə], service desert) is a management buzzword coined in Der Spiegel by economics professor Hermann Simon in 1995, referring to "the total lack of acceptable services". It is used to describe a country, region or area where the service sector generally or customer service specifically is weak or completely undeveloped. The term has correspondingly negative connotations.

It is often used for Germany, where it is perceived that many organizations do not offer any other services after the purchase of a product and do not consider customers' needs. Generally repairs and maintenance will be done only after paying additional fees. An example given by Simon is that in contrast to those in the United States, German supermarket checkouts did not have an employee dedicated to sacking groceries.