On the "is not monitoring and will not monitor"... If they took the time to deny present and future monitoring, the obvious question then becomes why haven't they denied past/recent past monitoring? Oh that's right, because they can't in fact deny it as they WERE monitoring.
NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders
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Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders
#22This is the understood and expected function of the NSA, isn't it? Collecting signals intelligence from foreign sources? Does anyone honestly believe the Germans aren't regularly trying to figure out ways to listen to American officials' communications? I find the NSA's domestic spying to be appalling... but this is the sort of thing everyone knew the NSA was responsible for since its inception.
Yeah, even if you're totally appalled by the PRISM NSA scandal, it's hard to get upset when the NSA spies on foreign leaders - which is it's job.
It's really strange when you think about it that even (especially?) friendly countries spy on each other, but there it is. And the funny thing is that if the Germans, or anyone, get upset about it we can just point to their foreign intelligence service and be like, "well, what are those guys doing?" and then they walk sheepishly away.
Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders
#23This is the understood and expected function of the NSA, isn't it? Collecting signals intelligence from foreign sources? Does anyone honestly believe the Germans aren't regularly trying to figure out ways to listen to American officials' communications? I find the NSA's domestic spying to be appalling... but this is the sort of thing everyone knew the NSA was responsible for since its inception.
Well I didn't know. Thought if you were allies you'd have a bit of respect for each other but guess I've been to naive.
Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders
#24I don't understand the bulk of comments being about this not being important. Or... well yeah, I understand the perspective that any intelligence agency should be collecting intelligence, so this shouldn't be a surprise per se. But this certainly levels out the playing field in that now the world knows at which lengths the NSA has been keeping tabs on people, and at least the majority of world leaders (and a lot of more "insignificant" people) will start using encrypted communications and networks like Tor. Which they should've been doing from the start. So, in this light, I think this is an important Snowden revelation.
Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders
#25This is the understood and expected function of the NSA, isn't it? Collecting signals intelligence from foreign sources? Does anyone honestly believe the Germans aren't regularly trying to figure out ways to listen to American officials' communications? I find the NSA's domestic spying to be appalling... but this is the sort of thing everyone knew the NSA was responsible for since its inception.
These are close, close allies though. We aren't talking about North Korea. We are talking about countries who have deep diplomatic and military ties.
The reason why you wouldn't do something like this, is because there was a damn good chance that it would leak out, mortally wounding your relationship with these people.
Secondly, the utility of this particular SIGINT program is highly questionable. What is the ROI on something like this? Germany is not plotting against the United States. What scenario would they use info for?
Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders
#26Presumably this will soon be followed up by other ground-breaking journalism pieces such as "Army kills people", "Surgeons perform surgery", and "Garbage collectors stun world by collecting garbage".
Irrespective of what one thinks of it (and I do not think favourably of it), how is it surprising that an organisation that is established specifically to spy on people is in fact spying on people?
Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders
#27A note to say that the Stop Watching Us coalition rally is now just two days away. If you're on the east coast, it's not too late to attend. If you're interested, you can find out more here: https://rally.stopwatching.us/ Privacy is one of the hardest things to get folks riled up about. It erodes slowly, and for "good" reasons, like defending the country against terrorism. But privacy is critical to a meaningful demo…
Thanks for posting this - it's the most important political topic of this generation. If I was anywhere close I'd attend.
I started chatting with a guy at a local bar over lunch the other day. The topic turned to surveillance and Snowden. Turned out my conversational partner was an off-duty cop. He thought Snowden was a traitor, and that the surveillance was totally justified because, "It makes protecting the innocent easier." And I asked him: "well, wouldn't being able to enter any home or car without a warrant or even probable cause make protecting the innocent? Basically, wouldn't repealing the 4th amendment make it easier?"
He paused for a moment, looked me straight in the eye, and said, "Yes."
That's when I knew we are all in real danger. People grow up and join law enforcement, and it changes them, and they don't even see it.
Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders
#28This is the understood and expected function of the NSA, isn't it? Collecting signals intelligence from foreign sources? Does anyone honestly believe the Germans aren't regularly trying to figure out ways to listen to American officials' communications? I find the NSA's domestic spying to be appalling... but this is the sort of thing everyone knew the NSA was responsible for since its inception.
This of it this way:
Do you routinely monitor the calls, emails and communications of your closest friends and relatives?
At some point, those people are going to cut you out of their lives for being so disrespectful and immoral.
Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders
#29This is the understood and expected function of the NSA, isn't it? Collecting signals intelligence from foreign sources? Does anyone honestly believe the Germans aren't regularly trying to figure out ways to listen to American officials' communications? I find the NSA's domestic spying to be appalling... but this is the sort of thing everyone knew the NSA was responsible for since its inception.
But we are not at war with everyone, and those countries involved (like Germany, France and Italy) are our partners, economical and military partners. I can accept doing SIGINT on non-friendly countries and organizations but is it correct to spy on your own people and partner countries?
Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders
#30This is the understood and expected function of the NSA, isn't it? Collecting signals intelligence from foreign sources? Does anyone honestly believe the Germans aren't regularly trying to figure out ways to listen to American officials' communications? I find the NSA's domestic spying to be appalling... but this is the sort of thing everyone knew the NSA was responsible for since its inception.
Intelligence from allies should come from cooperation, not espionage.