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WikiLeaks reveals the NSA spied on Berlusconi and his closest advisors

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Re: WikiLeaks reveals the NSA spied on Berlusconi and his closest advisors

#31

Post by tokenadult »

guelo wrote: post #23
pnathan wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is what it's chartered to do. Now, there exists a group of people, of which Assange is one (as far as I can tell), who believe that spying is wrong , and governmental secrecy is wrong . Thus this particular Wikileaks release, and, afaict, a lot of the Wikileaks effort has gone into promulgating that ideological goal. I would note that governmental transparency is pursued by multiple political groups across…

Spying is illegal in most countries, including the United States. If an Italian spy were caught here stealing Obama's communications he would be put in jail for a lengthy term. If an American spy were caught in Italy they would also be arrested and sent to jail. This whole concept that it's OK for my country to spy on others is strange and hypocritical. It is not heroic, legal, or moral, to spy on other countries unl…

No, the most common treatment of a spy acting under diplomatic cover (and that is the most common kind of spy) is simply to tell the purported diplomat that he may no longer stay in the host country, now being persona non grata. All countries around the world agree that they need to spy on one another and need to agree to be spied on by one another to make sure that diplomatic statements through official channels are verifiable. National leaders have to know the intentions of other national leaders--it would be irresponsible not to try to know.

AFTER EDIT: To clarify this point a bit, the world of espionage practice distinguishes "operatives" (nationals-employees of the foreign government, who first of all need a visa status even to be in the host country) from "agents" (nationals of the host country, who often have employment status in some sensitive position in the host country's government or armed forces). Yes, the United States and absolutely every country is harsh in its treatment of its own citizens who act as espionage agents directed by the intelligence operatives of foreign countries. Quite a few of the prisoners in the federal SuperMax prison in Colorado are people like John Walker or Robert Hanssen who were paid by the United States taxpayers to handle secret information with discretion and who were pledged by their terms of employment to not have contacts with foreign intelligence operatives at those operatives' direction. Men like that do hard prison time in any country where their activities are discovered. But the foreign operative usually just ends up expelled from the host country, unless there was something illegal in itself about the foreign operative's presence in the host country.

Re: WikiLeaks reveals the NSA spied on Berlusconi and his closest advisors

#32

Post by [deleted] »

secfirstmd wrote: post #15

While it's arguable that Berlusconi was a sensible target...How does that justify spying on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Afghanistan? Or from previous revelations, UNICEF - the children's agency? FWIW, I've just started laying out one aspect of this debate and how intelligence operation blowback can affect the perception of neutrality of NGOs working on the ground. This increasingly se…

[deleted]

Re: WikiLeaks reveals the NSA spied on Berlusconi and his closest advisors

#33

Post by qrendel »

tokenadult wrote: post #31
guelo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spying is illegal in most countries, including the United States. If an Italian spy were caught here stealing Obama's communications he would be put in jail for a lengthy term. If an American spy were caught in Italy they would also be arrested and sent to jail. This whole concept that it's OK for my country to spy on others is strange and hypocritical. It is not heroic, legal, or moral, to spy on other countries unl…

No, the most common treatment of a spy acting under diplomatic cover (and that is the most common kind of spy) is simply to tell the purported diplomat that he may no longer stay in the host country, now being persona non grata . All countries around the world agree that they need to spy on one another and need to agree to be spied on by one another to make sure that diplomatic statements through official channels ar…

From the release on the Wikileaks site (https://wikileaks.org/nsa-201602/):

"The US government has signed agreements with the UN that it will not engage in such conduct against the UN--let alone its Secretary General."

Re: WikiLeaks reveals the NSA spied on Berlusconi and his closest advisors

#34

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

pnathan wrote: post #8
duncan_bayne wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I sort of thought that's its legitimate purpose (as opposed to domestic surveillance).

Yes, this is what it's chartered to do. Now, there exists a group of people, of which Assange is one (as far as I can tell), who believe that spying is wrong , and governmental secrecy is wrong . Thus this particular Wikileaks release, and, afaict, a lot of the Wikileaks effort has gone into promulgating that ideological goal. I would note that governmental transparency is pursued by multiple political groups across…

>Now, there exists a group of people, of which Assange is one (as far as I can tell), who believe that spying is wrong, and governmental secrecy is wrong.

Let me tell you how to defend against that, because there will always be some of those people. Spy as little as possible, conceal it as much as you can, don't share your spy info to catch drug dealers, in fact, don't use it to prosecute crime at all, use it to stop real terrorist violence in progress and let some other jokers take the credit, use it to fact check diplomatic shenanigans. Spying and policing have zero business together in a free society.

Re: WikiLeaks reveals the NSA spied on Berlusconi and his closest advisors

#35

Post by solipsism »

samstave wrote: post #30

While I think that your analogy is fantastic - I want to rebut it... not to rebut you, but to the intelligence community. FUCK YOU intelligence community. I fucking hate you. We are suffering from the parasite of tyranny on the human condition. fuck that condition. Humans exist as both an individual and as a community - this is the binary spectrum we exist in. The challenge is in how we understand the differences bet…

Think build, not destroy.

Re: WikiLeaks reveals the NSA spied on Berlusconi and his closest advisors

#36

Post by samstave »

solipsism wrote: post #35
samstave wrote: post #30

While I think that your analogy is fantastic - I want to rebut it... not to rebut you, but to the intelligence community. FUCK YOU intelligence community. I fucking hate you. We are suffering from the parasite of tyranny on the human condition. fuck that condition. Humans exist as both an individual and as a community - this is the binary spectrum we exist in. The challenge is in how we understand the differences bet…

Think build , not destroy .

Agreed - but man, do I love me some emotional ranting about this. I'm just fed up.

Re: WikiLeaks reveals the NSA spied on Berlusconi and his closest advisors

#37

Post by superpatosainz »

apsec112 wrote: post #4

Spying on other governments is the NSA's job. The problem is when it starts spying on ordinary citizens.

Well that's what bothers me too: You have no rights as a non-American person. The NSA could not care less about your privacy.

I'm not a terrorist and yet the NSA can do whatever it wants with me, and that's scary.

Re: WikiLeaks reveals the NSA spied on Berlusconi and his closest advisors

#38

Post by chatmasta »

ApplaudPumice wrote: post #27
chatmasta wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. He has nothing to lose, so he is doing this now. For himself. The timing is obviously coordinated around his personal motives, not those of wikileaks the organization. In fact it's unclear how much of an "organization" really even exists outside of Assange. So perhaps his personal strategy remains inextricably linked to the wikileaks strategy, precisely because Julian Assange and wikileaks are effectively a…

And what are his personal motives? Provide some sources.

I don't know what they are. But do you think it's a coincidence that after a dull two years of leaks, this leak occurred in the same month the UK ignored the UN ruling in his favor?

He's playing his next card. I have no idea what his motives are, do you?

Re: WikiLeaks reveals the NSA spied on Berlusconi and his closest advisors

#39

Post by EdHominem »

pnathan wrote: post #8
duncan_bayne wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I sort of thought that's its legitimate purpose (as opposed to domestic surveillance).

Yes, this is what it's chartered to do. Now, there exists a group of people, of which Assange is one (as far as I can tell), who believe that spying is wrong , and governmental secrecy is wrong . Thus this particular Wikileaks release, and, afaict, a lot of the Wikileaks effort has gone into promulgating that ideological goal. I would note that governmental transparency is pursued by multiple political groups across…

> [...] a group of people, of which Assange is one (as far as I can tell), who believe that spying is wrong [...]

Obviously he doesn't, because he does what many people would consider spying.

I suggest that he has a more nuanced view that some spying is bad, and that you might want to consider that his support for it depends on how it serves the people.

> It's not a simple bijective mapping between the thought-movement Assange is with and the goal of governmental transparency; there are profound nuances [...]

Well, actually, no there aren't. Lying to bypass limits on your mandate is a crime, if not treason.

Re: WikiLeaks reveals the NSA spied on Berlusconi and his closest advisors

#40

Post by argonaut »

secfirstmd wrote: post #15

While it's arguable that Berlusconi was a sensible target...How does that justify spying on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Afghanistan? Or from previous revelations, UNICEF - the children's agency? FWIW, I've just started laying out one aspect of this debate and how intelligence operation blowback can affect the perception of neutrality of NGOs working on the ground. This increasingly se…

Corruption. Obviously we're both speculating here, but accountability is a serious problem with NGOs, along with corruption/graft/general-wastefulness. So if the US suspected massive (tens of millions of dollars, or more) corruption, that's a plausible reason.

I'm not saying it's likely, just that there are possible reasons out there in the world.

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