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NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders

theguardian.com

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Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders

#111

Post by grey-area »

ceejayoz wrote: post #67
bobwaycott wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps because foreign leaders do not consider tapping the phone lines of our allies to be within the scope of NSA's stated mission "to gain a decision advantage for the Nation and our allies under all circumstances."[1] Or maybe because SigInt is supposed to be working "for intelligence and counterintelligence purposes and to support military operations."[1] They might not get why tapping their phones supports Amer…

How on earth is knowing the internal dealings of foreign governments not "gaining a decision advantage for the Nation"?!

Gaining a decision advantage for the Nation should not trump morality - some advantages or ways of gaining an advantage are clearly immoral.

For example, releasing a genetically engineered virus which killed the entire population of the South American continent would gain a decisive advantage for the US nation, because it would open up lots more lebensraum and could be invaded and settled, but it's not usually seen as an acceptable way to behave.

Unacceptable actions include cheating on your allies, treating your enemies like animals, massacring civilians in or out of wartime, etc. Cheating on allies is particularly damaging because it means no one will trust an American from now on.

Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders

#112

Post by XorNot »

spdy wrote: post #58
npalli wrote: post #14

What is the strategy here? Of releasing information about NSA activities with foreign nations? Seems like it is mixing a potentially illegal activity (domestic spying) with their designated job. Doesn't every country try to do this. The NSA personnel could very well have undergone considerable risk to get this sort of thing going on. On the other hand, Joe public sees Snowden fleeing and chilling out in Russia/China…

You are wrong its a 1:0 for Snowden. Now it`s not only the "common" people and how Merkel reacted is atypical for her. Lets hope we see some actions out of this event at least the EU parliament set the first sign with voting against SWIFT.

Merkel is reacting this way because it plays well with a group of people who don't realize that they're actually wildly outside of their field of expertise on an issue.

Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders

#113

Post by grey-area »

XorNot wrote: post #108
jsmcgd wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A great way to expedite that transition is to disrespect them, treating them like your enemy when they're still your ally.

You know what has millions of people and is entirely unlike an individual human being? A country . The convenient narratives spun to explain international politics seem entirely lost on people and are being treated as literal relations of how countries behave rather then shorthand. "China" doesn't act like a person. It doesn't have emotions, moods or opinions like a person does. When we talk about "China thinks this"…

Countries and the people who make them up also form alliances, hate betrayal, and hold grudges. If your country thinks it is acceptable to betray allies, you will soon have no allies. If you say one thing and do another and the gap is wide enough, eventually no other country will believe a word you say, even when you tell the truth.

Alliances between countries are not formed in a rational way just on a specific issue normally, but based on previous actions and previous issues, and old loyalties. To betray those loyalties just means no-one will feel any loyalty to you - that may work in the short-term if you are big enough but long-term it's a terrible strategy.

So in that sense countries are like people, though I agree in many senses they are not.

Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders

#114

Post by kybernetikos »

fein wrote: post #3

Jay Carney issued a statement that said the US "is not monitoring and will not monitor" the German chancellor's communications. This is probably the best tell the US government has for sniffing out the bullshit. If they don't explicitly deny the event occurring in the past, it happened. Reminds me of a Spaceballs scene: Colonel Sandurz: Now. You're looking at now, sir. Everything that happens now, is happening now. D…

As Bismarck (although I came across it on 'Yes, Minister') apparently said

"Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied."

Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders

#115

Post by grey-area »

This has some interesting implications:

What would this information be useful for? Why was the NSA collecting this information and at whose request? Is the same being done to US politicians?

The most useful applications of this I can think of are betraying allies, manipulating negotiations with rival trade blocs, economic espionage, and of course protecting the power of the agencies who perform this surveillance and the lucky few who are given strictly limited access to it.

If the POTUS is given this intelligence and makes most of his decisions based on it, how does he know that he is being given the truth, rather than a carefully edited version of it?

It seems surveillance is no longer focussed on terrorism, if it ever was (indeed a few terrorist attacks have gone on the US without detection in spite of all this surveillance). It's telling that even the NSA have given up using that excuse as it becomes more and more clear where the focus of their intelligence gathering is directed.

Is the NSA (and the US by proxy) using the information it collects as a way of protecting and expanding its power? Is this inevitable if you give an organisation that much power over our lives and very little oversight?

Are all allies of the US mistrusted so much that they must be spied on? Should they in return shut down trust of the US and repudiate treaties they have with it like the one sharing SWIFT data or details of people visiting the US? Can the EU trust the products of American internet companies, or should they set up rivals?

It seems information has become more and more synonymous with power as our economies in the west become information economies, and the greatest power of all has been handed to an agency without significant legal limits and without any sort of public accountability, led by a member of the military.

Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders

#116

Post by andyjohnson0 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #64
bparsons wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Germany is not plotting against the United States. What scenario would they use info for? Being certain that Germany is not plotting against the United States, I'd guess.

The US doesn't need to spy on the German chancellor to be certain of this. There is no conceivable plot that Germany could be involved in that could damage the US, and both countries know this. Same with the UK, Israel, France, etc.

Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders

#117

Post by gambiting »

After the crash of the Polish president's plane in Smolensk, it was widely known that the Americans have recordings of all conversations made with his satellite phone aboard the plane. I don't remember that sparking much controversy at the time, everyone was more like "yup, that's what Americans do" and there was pretty much no outrage over that.

Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders

#118

Post by teddyh »

jlgreco wrote: post #80
pyoung wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it means that the NSA can, and has, collected data on just about anyone. What they do with it, my guess is not much unless there is an actual national security threat, is still up for question.

When in doubt, assume the worse so that you might only be pleasantly surprised. Assume there is a J. Edgar Hoover 2.0.

That would not be assuming the worst; A J. Edgar Hoover 2.0 would still be a person.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

— C.S. Lewis

Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders

#119

Post by noptic »

sdoering wrote: post #95
grecy wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, sort of I do. I check the FB-Pages. ;-) Sorry, but something like this seems to me to be the reason, nobody really cares about NSA spying on him (at least here in Germany). We all do it. We all give in to our voyeuristic urges. We all "spy" upon our neighbors, spouses, friends and so on. We do not get the scope. We do not know, what it means, if states do this. We do not think about different hierarchical power…

> nobody really cares about NSA spying on him (at least here in Germany).

Please only speak for yourself. To few people care about it, but "nobody" is just plain wrong.

Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders

#120

Post by sbirchall »

frank_boyd wrote: post #105
javajosh wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 innocen…

I'd say that's the Police having lowered the barrier-to-entry to the lowest possible point: high school drop-outs with no education and/or thinking skills whatsoever. Sad and dangerous.

Psh, it's not the police that are the flashpoint IMO it is the marines. Their entry requirements are so lax it is beyond scary.
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