Yeah, it's not like the German people are at all sensitive about the topic of having a secret, unaccountable organisation spying on them.
As we're learning here in the US, there's a big difference and gap between "the people" and the government.
But there isn't! You might all feel that your government is misrepresenting you, but until serious action is taken, nothing is going to change. What that serious action is, I have no idea. Other countries have dealt with oppressive regimes before, some better than others.
How are all of our elected officials "just finding out" about this stuff? Bullshit! Our congressmen, senators, and POTUS are all "as surprised as you are!"(TM) about these allegations that keep coming out. Obama doesn't know anything. Feinstein (who heads the Senate intelligence committee, and is briefed on the NSA's activity) knows nothing. What's the difference between extreme incompetence and maliciously lying? I…
I would even let them get away with that argument, but if they do use that argument, that means they should also be pissed off about these revelations, and realize that NSA has gone fully rogue, and they need to drastically rein in on it. At least that's the logical conclusion from their argument.
The problem is they want their cake and eat it, too. They want to get away with it themselves, but also protect NSA and their powers. We should call them out on their hypocrisy, and ask them to restrain NSA's powers if it's really a surprise for them, too.
Respect, sure. But "asking nicely"? How has that not been done already, over and over and over? " Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people that were oppressing them. " -- Assata Shakur Even though we could argue about wether this stuff consititutes "oppression", I think the point still applies, sadly.
I'm not sure what we are talking about here. The US government is oppressing everyone... both Americans and non-Americans. In theory, the American people are the only ones with the power to solve this problem. This responsibility is a burden. Before going to bat, I would rather encounter friendly encouragement than smug contempt.
For what it's worth, you have mine. Encouragament that is, not contempt. Although I'm not convinced all Americans are yet aware of the fact that they themselves also are at the wrong end of this gun, I'm sure the number increases daily. And generally I don't think excluding people for what others force on them, or even for their ignorance, or even for their hybris, really leads anywhere. So many Americans have my support and even admiration, and even the ones I do resent (not in a smug way though, I'm under no such delusions I would hope), I would rather argue with, or, at worst, bitch at (but never, ever, "ask nicely" :P), than outright shun. Letting someone simmer in their own sauce can work with individuals, but in nations I think it always strengthens the autocratic and warmongering elements.
Gen. Keith Alexander, asked about it at a Bloomberg event, denied the accusations. "I don't know what the report is," Alexander cautioned, adding the NSA does not "have access to Google servers, Yahoo servers." He said the NSA is "not authorized" to do this, and instead, must "go through a court process." http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/keith-alexander-nsa-re...
That's a potentially perfectly accurate statement that doesn't in any way refute the story. The leak indicates they have access to the fiber lines between datacenters, not the servers themselves.
I am at a loss for words. Arrogant, self-righteous, disrespectful, ignorant, mendacious...nothing cuts it. It is illegal in the US but who cares about the rest of the world? I can not remember when something similar made me that angry as the current conduct of the US does. If I would not know better that this would negatively affect the whole world and innocent US citizens and that emotional reactions are usually not…
I'm a US citizen. Born and bred. And, at this point, I can't in good faith say that I would blame you. I think it's pretty safe to say that getting rid of a President is no longer enough. My sense is that the people who make these policies really are "Beyond Elections". They are constants in our government. And appear unassailable. I doubt very much that we, the American People, could even IDENTIFY the people setting…
I believe strongly in "win win" solutions; in a broad internationalism that tries (at least in principle) to find solutions that benefit the whole of humanity (perhaps not uniformly, but uniformly enough to make everybody a net winner).
That last phrase really spooks me. "Look to their own interests". Saddens me a bit, too.
> It's debatable that other countries are "above" it in moral terms It's really not, since many of the releases of information about what the US is doing -- including the current one -- have other countries also neck deep in it. I mean, the actual spying in the article that this comment thread is attached to is done by the UK's GCHQ, NSA is just a consumer of the data.
As pointed out above, misconduct of other countries does not justify the own behavior. There is really no big difference between collecting the information on your own or letting someone else do the dirty work and then just crabbing the results. I should have pointed out more clearly that I am not especially against the behavior of the USA but against behavior like this in general but I did so in some other comments.…
> for example I can not even imagine any EU country doing something like Guantanamo
By the information that has publicly come out about the "black sites" operated by the US and its allies -- from which prisoners were later transferred to the not-secret facility at Guatanamo where at least a show of adhering to international humanitarian law was made, several EU countries were actively involved in the system, and the UK was not only involved but actually operated prisons in the system.
So, yeah, EU countries have, contemporarily with Guantanamo, done things as much like the worst aspects of the Guantanamo detention as is possible.
I am at a loss for words. Arrogant, self-righteous, disrespectful, ignorant, mendacious...nothing cuts it. It is illegal in the US but who cares about the rest of the world? I can not remember when something similar made me that angry as the current conduct of the US does. If I would not know better that this would negatively affect the whole world and innocent US citizens and that emotional reactions are usually not…
but spying at non-US citizens and breaking foreign law in peacetime is deemed acceptable. First let me say that I agree with your sentiment -- it's hypocritical for people in the US to be upset about the US government's spying on its own citizens, but not upset when the people are in other countries. Now for a dose of realism -- every single country out there that has a foreign policy and interests abroad behaves in…
> Now for a dose of realism -- every single country out there that has a foreign policy and interests abroad behaves in this way to one extent or another.
Simply not true. There may be a few large countries trying, but at nowhere near the global capability to lay bare all details of just about any person on the planet, like the US. And that's just comparing to the larger countries. The UK hacked Belgian telecoms, you're going to have to show me some proof that the reverse is also true. That's ridiculous.
The consequences of the Netherlands "behaving in this way to one extent or another" towards the US--yes, even a little bit--would not be very positive for the Netherlands. We do, however, "have a foreign policy and interests abroad".
The fact that the US believes it can get away with this sort of behaviour (and we'll have to see about that), doesn't somehow make it right or justify it in any way.
It's hard not to come to the conclusion that these activities were essentially criminal. I don't see how the administration can fail to disavow them, investigate them fully, and hold their instigators accountable. It feels like Special Prosecutor time. That aside, let me re-make a point I keep making: Google had no knowledge of NSA's physical compromise of their data centers. But still, they pushed harder than anyone…
That all sounds very impressive, but in the end it didn't work and all our emails are belong to them.
Google was letting information flow between its data centers completely unencrypted until last month . http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/google-enc... Last month! Think about that for a second. Most people on HN wouldn't send a single file to their own backup provider in the clear. Google was sending gushing torrents of data, presumably including email, IMs, etc, over long distances that way. That's v…
> Google was letting information flow between its data center completely unencrypted until last month. http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/google-enc... . Last month! Over their own private WAN. The analogy would be sending things in the clear over your LAN. [Citation: http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~rcs/research/google-onrc-slide... ]
Do not trust that your internal networks are secure. Any links carrying business or customer data should be encrypted.
I remember over a decade ago talking with the security head of a university where I was working, about a new system design. I made some comment like "well this is all on the machine room network" and his response was "I wouldn't trust the machine room network." Pretty eye-opening since he was the person responsible for its security.
I am to lazy to type it again, but this comment [1] from me fits your comment pretty well. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6643253
I completely agree with your sentiment that no one is justified in thinking they are superior to anyone else. Furthermore, I have never said anything even remotely to the contrary.
The quoted comment was not the best one I could have picked - I just wanted to clarify that the thing about isolating the US was just to illustrate my feelings but nothing to consider seriously.