NSA spying row: Denmark helped US gather data on European officials, says report • Hacker News Board

Re: NSA spying row: Denmark helped US gather data on European officials, says report

#101

Post by jpz » Mon, May 31, 2021, 10:46 AM UTC

visarga wrote: post #52

jpz wrote: post #50

The EU project has always been a project rather paternalistically cultivated by US foreign operations, including intelligence operations, so I believe. It allowed them to remove a heap of troops from forward bases in the region.

I think Europeans have had enough wars to want a more stable Europe, with or without US support.

Tt was the CIA that infiltrated the communists in Italy for the exact purpose of shaping the politics of the continent to their design.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_activities_in_Italy

Re: NSA spying row: Denmark helped US gather data on European officials, says report

#102

Post by Lammy » Mon, May 31, 2021, 10:51 AM UTC

estomagordo wrote: post #79

rsj_hn wrote: post #32

This all boils down to the question of how to reign in the administrative state, and the problem here is that no one really wants to reign it in, they want to control it and point it in the direction they prefer, that is, they want an extra-judicial, extra-legislative source of power to exist, but just not do any of the things they don't like. But I don't think this is possible, once you have an administrative state,…

Missing a few steps between "having an administrative state" and "spy on everyone" there, buddy.

Just wait until you learn what “government” means in Latin :p

Re: NSA spying row: Denmark helped US gather data on European officials, says report

#103

Post by shakow » Mon, May 31, 2021, 10:53 AM UTC

PoignardAzur wrote: post #80

dralley wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And not just the NSA. Despite their feigned outrage every time stuff like this hits the news, both Germany and France actively spy on US government and industry all the time. Every nation spies on every other nation, friend or foe, to look out for their own national interests. https://www.france24.com/en/20131024-nsa-france-spying-squar... > Bernard Squarcini, head of the Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur…

I think Squarcini might have a bit of a bias towards minimizing the importance of that kind of spying, since France is one of the most aggressive state-sponsors of industrial espionage, after China and the US. But the gist of the article is "yeah, of course they're going to do it, if we give them the opportunity". We european countries really shouldn't be giving the US so much opportunity to spy on us.

> France is one of the most aggressive state-sponsors of industrial espionage, after China and the US.

That's the kind of thing you can't just write out of nowhere without any reference.

Re: NSA spying row: Denmark helped US gather data on European officials, says report

#104

Post by Daho0n » Mon, May 31, 2021, 11:11 AM UTC

paganel wrote: post #61

f38zf5vdt wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember the golden rule: He who has the gold makes the rules.

Or the nuclear arsenal which sits on your side. Most of Europe has effectively outsourced its military defence to the Americans with some plain, visible costs (the at least 2% of GDP in military expenditure the previous US president was so keen about) and, more importantly, there are also some other, hidden costs, like the Assange scandal and stuff like this Danish - NSA cooperation.

>Most of Europe has effectively outsourced its military defence to the Americans

That is a very American point of view. Many Europeans see it more as "The US pay a bigger part than we do in bolstering American control of the western world", which is exactly as it should be. IMO the US should pay exactly 100% of the bill for its own defense and enforcement of its power projection. The US does this to protect the US, not Europe. Europe is only interesting if it is pro-US and as a buffer and economic zone. Old Cold war plans even had plans to nuke Europe to show the USSR that the US meant business in the event of a USSR invasion..

What we see here is a perfect example why I (as a Danish citizen) have heard Denmark called Little America and Scandinavia's answer to the USA by both Swedes and Norwegians. Often living here feels more like living in a satellite or puppet state than a free country:

Do F-35s match our need? No not at all but we better break our own laws to make a contract that only the US can win. Do citizens want a US base the Danish military isn't allowed to monitor for nuclear weapons? No but we still got one (and even though not allowed it still had nukes). Do the people want a NSA like intelligence system? No but even the average elected politicians can't get access to any information about FE and what they do (only leaks like this tell them what is going on). And so on and so forth.

The latest Democratic Perception Index (chaired by the Danish former NATO general secretary Anders Fogh) found when asking people "Who is the biggest threat to democracy in the world?" most rated the US as the biggest threat (if I remember correctly, northern Europeans especially had this viewpoint).

This is just a situation of the puppet doing as it was taught.

Re: NSA spying row: Denmark helped US gather data on European officials, says report

#105

Post by tored » Mon, May 31, 2021, 11:28 AM UTC

allendoerfer wrote: post #77

correcthorse123 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm so glad your government is helping to keep us safe! To express my gratitude I'll help boost your economy with some ad revenue today and aid the good fight. The profits should trickle down to you eventually. On a more serious note, I think (possibly in my naive ignorance) the geopolitical implications are quite different. I have the impression that American cultural influence has become increasingly prevalent thro…

> I'm not sure to what extent I should consider this to be problematic. Okay, I'll help you: By doing this shit, the US is losing goodwill and Germans will align more with Russia, e.g. by building pipelines instead of buying US gas. Russia is a long-term threat to the expansion plans of the EU and is hindering us at creating a true union across all of Europe. The US is a threat to our economy. China is becoming our b…

Syria civil war was a CIA operation to oust Bashar al-Assad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore

Libya civil war also probably CIA. And then you have Iraq.

These wars created multiple migration crises to Europe.

And not only that, by funding and training rebels in Syria it lead to a hotbed for terrorist, some of these terrorist slipped into Europe and committed terrorist attacks, like the Paris 2015 attacks (130 murdered).

Re: NSA spying row: Denmark helped US gather data on European officials, says report

#106

Post by jopsen » Mon, May 31, 2021, 11:29 AM UTC

aborsy wrote: post #69

jopsen wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing phone calls and sms isn't encrypted and frequently used. Regardless, just monitoring IPs talking to each other will have you some idea what sites / services they are using. Also 10 years ago HTTPS wasn't everywhere yet.

Why on earth someone like Merkle will use plaintext SMS? I mean, even I don’t use it. Doesn’t she have a competent security team, advising her about OPSec? It’s not just metadata. US spied on communication content. The point is, tools are there; you need to be able to defend yourself against attacks.

10 years ago... I still use sms with family members, etc.

The tools are there... But have you successfully convinced all your friends to use signal?

I know Merkles connects to family and friends might not seem critical, but it's probably stuff like that they are aggregating. But just recording phone numbers.

But also just getting IPs let's you know what services a person is using.

It's my impression that much it the SIGINT Snowdon revealed was metadata.. of course for a target like Merkle there might be more.

Re: NSA spying row: Denmark helped US gather data on European officials, says report

#107

Post by niksakl » Mon, May 31, 2021, 11:42 AM UTC

tgv wrote: post #92

estomagordo wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Missing a few steps between "having an administrative state" and "spy on everyone" there, buddy.

Organisations creep until they are stopped when left untended. They can stop growing because of money shortage, political decisions, lack of manpower, pressure from stakeholders, etc., but there's a strong tendency in all organisations to grow and expand influence. There's no reason why this should not hold for spying and policing agencies. It's not inevitable, but there certainly is a non-negligible probability.

>There's no reason why this should not hold for spying and policing agencies

Isn't that what democracies call "constitution"? Something that protects citizens' rights again wrong-doing of powerful entities including legislators and the state itself?

Re: NSA spying row: Denmark helped US gather data on European officials, says report

#108

Post by tored » Mon, May 31, 2021, 11:45 AM UTC

allendoerfer wrote: post #77

correcthorse123 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm so glad your government is helping to keep us safe! To express my gratitude I'll help boost your economy with some ad revenue today and aid the good fight. The profits should trickle down to you eventually. On a more serious note, I think (possibly in my naive ignorance) the geopolitical implications are quite different. I have the impression that American cultural influence has become increasingly prevalent thro…

> I'm not sure to what extent I should consider this to be problematic. Okay, I'll help you: By doing this shit, the US is losing goodwill and Germans will align more with Russia, e.g. by building pipelines instead of buying US gas. Russia is a long-term threat to the expansion plans of the EU and is hindering us at creating a true union across all of Europe. The US is a threat to our economy. China is becoming our b…

With multicultural societies who knows what the sum of cultural alignments ends up as, combined with shallow consumer culture, where anything can align to anything as long it has a cheap price tag and a nice packaging, US-Europe cultural alignment will be in the near future a thing of the past.

Re: NSA spying row: Denmark helped US gather data on European officials, says report

#109

Post by amcoastal » Mon, May 31, 2021, 12:00 PM UTC

niksakl wrote: post #107

tgv wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Organisations creep until they are stopped when left untended. They can stop growing because of money shortage, political decisions, lack of manpower, pressure from stakeholders, etc., but there's a strong tendency in all organisations to grow and expand influence. There's no reason why this should not hold for spying and policing agencies. It's not inevitable, but there certainly is a non-negligible probability.

>There's no reason why this should not hold for spying and policing agencies Isn't that what democracies call "constitution"? Something that protects citizens' rights again wrong-doing of powerful entities including legislators and the state itself?

And how's thats working out so far?

Re: NSA spying row: Denmark helped US gather data on European officials, says report

#110

Post by heresie-dabord » Mon, May 31, 2021, 12:05 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #44

rsj_hn wrote: post #32

This all boils down to the question of how to reign in the administrative state, and the problem here is that no one really wants to reign it in, they want to control it and point it in the direction they prefer, that is, they want an extra-judicial, extra-legislative source of power to exist, but just not do any of the things they don't like. But I don't think this is possible, once you have an administrative state,…

Do you think it would be fair to say that countries that operate in this way are no longer democracies? I have my own thoughts on the matter but I'm curious based on this assessment of yours what other people think about the implications of the situation.

> countries that operate in this way are no longer democracies?

Such countries do not extend democratic values to ~other countries~. In fact, they may actively erode democracy in other countries.

If the power structure of a country no longer extends democratic values to other countries, the power structure ~may~ no longer understand democratic principles and have deep problems within its own nation as a result.