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Germany must wake up, says Oliver Grün, president of BITMi, which represents small and medium sized German IT companies.

German companies believe the US now poses almost as big a risk as China when it comes to industrial espionage and data theft, according to a survey published in July by EY, the consultancy.

In all the documentation leaked by Mr Snowden, there has, however, been no evidence to date that the US has passed on foreign companies' trade secrets to its own companies.

Politicians have expressed concern that the EU lacks certain IT and internet capabilities and should strive to reduce its dependence on the US.

Business leaders are sceptical about this.

Someone in the German parliament says we should build a German Google.

I can only shut my eyes and slowly open them again...

That's not the way, Hasso Plattner, chairman of German business software company SAP, says.

If one wanted a strong European IT industry, then one shouldn't have let it die out 20 years ago.

Everything is subsidised in Germany, from coal, to cars and farmers.

Everything but the IT industry.

Still, the reach and technical sophistication of US spy agencies exposed by the Snowden revelations have come as a shock to some companies who previously thought the biggest surveillance risk was posed by China.

A big shift is occurring in cloud computing where European executives have become more aware that data stored in the US is subject to that jurisdiction and therefore potentially vulnerable.

According to a survey carried out by the Cloud Security Alliance, a trade body, some 10 per cent of non-US members cancelled plans to use a US-based cloud provider after revelations about the US Prism data mining programme.

Jim Snabe, co-chief executive at SAP, says: "We see a new question from customers that didn't come up a year ago - which is where is my data stored and can you guarantee that it stays physically in that jurisdiction."

Many German executives argue that the latest reports are simply confirmation of what they already knew: that powerful states want to steal their most prized secrets and these data must therefore be guarded at all costs.

That economic spying takes place is not a surprise.

It has always taken place.

This has been a topic for many years and hasn't fundamentally changed through the current discussion, says Kurt Bock, chief executive of chemical maker BASF.

The Americans spy on us on the commercial and industrial level as we spy on them too, because it is in the national interest to defend our businesses.

Corporate leaders are not generally keen to boast about the countermeasures they have taken, in case this hands an advantage to an attacker.

For large companies, the message has long since been drummed home that picking up a free USB stick at a trade fair, or leaving a laptop unguarded in a hotel room are unwise, to say the least.

Ulrich Hackenberg, board member at carmaker Audi, says it has been standard practice for years for mobile phones to be collected before board meetings so they cannot be used as remote listening devices.

Germany's BfV advises executives to consider using simple prepaid mobiles when on foreign trips because of the risk that smart phones are compromised.

The prepaid mobiles are then thrown away afterwards.

However, there is concern that small and medium-sized companies remain vulnerable to hacking and surveillance.

In Germany, many of these companies are global market leaders in their particular niche.

Small and medium sized companies often lack the experience, personnel and financial resources to protect corporate secrets effectively against unauthorised access, the BfV warns in a report.

The US warns its own companies about economic espionage by other countries.

The US National Intelligence Estimate in February named France alongside Russia and Israel in a second tier of offenders who engage in hacking for economic intelligence, behind China, according to The Washington Post.

A board member at a German blue-chip company concurred that when it comes to economic espionage, "the French are the worst."

Bernard Squarcini, former head of the French internal intelligence agency DCRI, was quoted in an interview this month as saying: "The services know perfectly well that all countries, even as they co-operate in the antiterrorist fight, spy on their allies."

The Americans spy on us on the commercial and industrial level as we spy on them too, because it is in the national interest to defend our businesses.

Nobody is fooled.

Parents of Georgia teen who died in 'freak accident' believe son was murdered

The parents of a Georgia teenager, whose body was found inside a rolled-up wrestling mat in his high school gym, believe their son was murdered, the family's attorney said Thursday.

Kendrick Johnson, of Valdosta, Ga., was found Jan. 11 stuck in an upright mat propped behind the bleachers inside his high school gym.

Lowndes County sheriff's investigators concluded Johnson died in a freak accident, but the 17-year-old's family disputes that.

They absolutely think their son was murdered, Benjamin Crump, an attorney representing Kenneth and Jacquelyn Johnson, told FoxNews.com.

They never believed he died the way the sheriff concluded.

They believe that it defies logic, the laws of physics as well as common sense, Crump said.

They think this is a cover-up to protect the person or people responsible for their son's death.

They sent their son to school with a book-bag and he was returned to them in a body bag, he said.

U.S. Attorney Michael Moore said Thursday he is conducting a formal investigation into Johnson's death, noting that several key questions remain unanswered.

What was the cause of death?

Was his death the result of a crime?

Moore said at a press conference Thursday afternoon.

I will follow the facts wherever they lead.

My objective is to discovery the truth.

I am of the opinion that a sufficient basis exists for a formal investigation, he said.

Moore told reporters that the initial autopsy indicated Johnson died as a result of "positional asphyxia."

A second autopsy, however, listed a different cause of death, according to Moore.

There are several questions that must be answered or confirmed, he said.

Moore added that if he uncovers sufficient evidence to warrant a criminal or civil rights investigation into the death of Johnson he will ask the FBI to conduct it.

A representative from the Lowndes County Sheriff's Office was not immediately available for comment when contacted Thursday.

A southern Georgia judge on Wednesday ordered authorities to release all surveillance video that investigators reviewed.

The teenager's parents said they hope the video footage will contain clues to how he died.

CDC issues children's allergy guidelines for schools

On Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a set of guidelines to manage children's food allergies at school.

This is the first set of such guidelines the U.S. government has put out, as the number of school-age children suffering from food allergies climbs.

One in 20 children in the United States now have food allergies.

The CDC found the prevalence of food allergies among children increased 18 percent between 1997 and 2007.

The guide contains information for schools on how to make faculty and staff aware of children's food allergies, and how to handle them should an allergic reaction occur.

It also recommends schools have epinephrine stocked -- the EpiPen brand auto-injector being most commonly used -- to respond to potentially fatal anaphylaxis.

State legislatures have recently been updating rules to allow schools to stock epinephrine more easily.

The report also includes a list of typical symptoms communicated by children who are having an allergic reaction.

Kids may say, "It feels like something is poking my tongue," "My tongue feels like there is hair on it," or "My tongue is tingling."

Parents of Intersex Kids Can Pick 'Gender Undetermined'

Germany became the first European nation to recognize a third gender for babies born with ambiguous genitalia.

No longer will newborns be rigidly assigned to male or female.

The new law doesn't require parents to declare any gender for such children, allowing parents to declare gender "undetermined" or "unspecified" on their birth certificates.

The aim of the law was to take the pressure off parents who might make hasty decisions on sex-assignment surgery for newborns, and to fight discrimination against those who are intersex.

One intersex person, according to the BBC, said years later, "I am neither a man nor a woman."

I will remain the patchwork created by doctors, bruised and scarred.

An estimated one in 2,000 children born each year is neither boy nor girl.

They are intersex, part of a group of about 60 conditions that fall under the diagnosis of disorders of sexual development, an umbrella term for those with atypical chromosomes, gonads (ovaries or testes), or unusually developed genitalia.

Wallis Simpson may have been intersex.

Gender identification is still not well understood, but most experts in the United States say that when sex cannot be determined, it's better to use the best available information to assign it then to wait and monitor the child's psychological and physical development before undertaking surgery, if at all.

New York City psychiatrist Dr. Jack Drescher, who specializes in issues of gender identification, said the new German law "sounds like a good thing."

Intersex children pose ethical dilemma.

Some people have life-endangering conditions that require surgery, but most kids do not, he said.

You can make a gender assignment without surgery, and then see how identity develops.

The science of knowing how a child will develop any gender identity is not very accurate.

Nobody can answer the questions about why this happens.

It's like the mystery of why people are gay.

A report filed to the European Commission in 2011 described intersex people as different from transsexual or transgender people, as their status is not gender related but instead relates to their biological makeup, which is neither exclusively male nor exclusively female, but is typical of both at once or not clearly defined as either.

These features can manifest themselves in secondary sexual characteristics, such as muscle mass, hair distribution, breasts and stature; primary sexual characteristics such as reproductive organs and genitalia; or in chromosomal structures and hormones.

The report also gives an overview of the discrimination faced by intersex and transgender people in the realm of employment, as well as levels of harassment, violence and bias crimes.

Gender nonconforming boys now have special camp.

Already, Australia and Nepal allow adults to mark male, female or a "third gender" on their official documents.

In June, a 52-year-old Australian, Norrie May-Welby, became the world's first recognized "genderless" person after winning a legal appeal to keep an "unspecified" gender status for life.

German passports will have a third designation other than M or F -- X, for intersex, according to the Interior Ministry.

In neighboring France, gender issues are still controversial, according to a news report on France 24.

In 2011, dozens of French lawmakers from that strongly Catholic country signed a petition for "gender theory" to be withdrawn from school textbooks.

The U.S. website Catholic Online has also opposed the German law, writing that "as the world is being dragged into a new state, where gender is a choice, but sexual activity is not, we reverse two more pillars of civilization."

One Maryland mother of a newborn also told the Baby Zone that she would rather see babies assigned gender at birth.

Parenting is stressful enough without extra limitations, especially if you don't know the gender of your child, she told the parenting website.

Children need stability and certainty.

Historically, children born with both male and female genitalia were called hermaphrodites, named for the handsome Greek god who had dual sexuality.

And as little as a decade ago, the medical community thought of gender as a slate that could be erased and then redrawn.