The German government has discovered the Internet and data privacy as a political issue. The new debate over who should control the online world reveals a clash of two cultures, with the American ideal of freedom contrasting with the European desire for privacy.

Sometimes it's a good thing to have at least one real enemy, particularly when you already have no friends. No one knows this better than Ilse Aigner.

For the last year and a half, Aigner, who is from Upper Bavaria and a member of the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), the sister party to Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, has been Germany's minister of food, agriculture and consumer protection - in that order. Aigner spends much of her time inaugurating trade shows and agricultural fairs, being photographed with cute farm animals and expressing her outrage over rotten meat, genetically engineered corn and imitation cheese. She hasn't made much of an impression.

Until now, that is. She recently took on a truly serious issue: the Internet and data privacy. And suddenly the minister finds herself facing more powerful foes than dodgy butchers: online giants like Amazon, Facebook and, above all, Google.

Soon the U.S. search engine company plans to send cars equipped with cameras out onto Germany's roads once again, to photograph every house and every block and create three-dimensional maps for the company's Street View project. Aigner is now insisting that Google should ask permission before violating the privacy of German citizens. Most of all, the minister's attacks reveal just how divided the German government is when it comes to the online world.