It didn't last long. For about 30 seconds in the wee hours of Monday morning, the US Embassy in Berlin became the target of a guerilla light projection. The message "United Stasi of America" was cast onto the side of the building above an image of Internet activist and hacker icon Kim Schmitz, aka "Kim Dotcom."

The action coincides with growing criticism of the US government's secret surveillance efforts in Europe that some have likened to the practices of the Eastern German secret police during the Cold War.

Oliver Bienkowski, a light artist from Düsseldorf, staged the exploit. He said police approached his vehicle immediately, but were polite about asking him to move along. "I just want to do things that people will see and try to get them to think," he told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

Schmitz gave Bienkowski permission to use his picture and slogan for the projection. Bienkowski, who paid € 5,000 out of his own pocket to finance the coup, said he projected the message from the back side of the embassy to evade the more intense security on the other side of the building, where the French Embassy and Brandenburg Gate also stand.

Bienkowski insisted that the location from which the photo was taken -- in the middle of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe -- was chosen only because of the view it offered. "There was no political background to it," he said. "It was an excellent place to take an image from."