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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

#101

Post by mythz »

r00fus wrote: post #61
conductor wrote: post #19

This is the top comment on the Reddit thread: "They went after high ranking military officers . They went after members of congress . The Senate and the House - especially on the intelligence committees, and on the armed services committees and judicial. But they went after other ones too. They went after lawyers and law firms . Heaps of lawyers and law firms. They went after judges . One of the judges is now sitting…

The big question is, who controls this security state? The information is being collected, but who's the audience? And what is their agenda?

Information is power and power is money. They can use it to protect themselves and control high-ranking officials to ensure, for instance, that they will always be well-founded to be able to continue unfettered in their mission to acquire even more information and power.

Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders

#102

Post by judk »

fidotron wrote: post #9

I genuinely fail to be outraged by this. The NSA has a job, which is the monitoring of the signals of foreign militaries and governments. That they were doing that is not surprising or necessarily bad since those entities should be more than capable of operating in such an environment. The problem is the mass slurping of the data of everyone else.

That's like saying the DoD has a job, which is to go to war with foreign countries.

Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders

#103

Post by junto »

pvnick wrote: post #36
conductor wrote: post #19

This is the top comment on the Reddit thread: "They went after high ranking military officers . They went after members of congress . The Senate and the House - especially on the intelligence committees, and on the armed services committees and judicial. But they went after other ones too. They went after lawyers and law firms . Heaps of lawyers and law firms. They went after judges . One of the judges is now sitting…

I remember this post being made here on HN around when the revelations first started coming out and we were still trying to collect ourselves and adjust to the new realities of omnipresent surveillance. It was on the front page and had a ton of upvotes. I really hope that Snowden has evidence of this. Whether he does or not is just about make-it-or-break-it for whether we'll see any real reform.

Makes sense as to why Obama flip-flopped on reigning in the NSA. Blackmail.

Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders

#104

Post by grey-area »

aclevernickname wrote: post #57
mpyne wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, I've been a big defender of the role for signals intelligence, including NSA's hand in such. But there is a lot to be said for discretion, especially when you're talking about the top echelon of our NATO allies! Even my defenses of NSA have been predicated on the actual need for intelligence collection. This has the corollary that collection without any use should not be sanctioned. So absent some evidence…

your comment is calibrating, because it shows that there is a limit to how much privacy invasion the average american will stand for. Thank you for being so forthcoming.

diminoten from sibling comment, you are hellbanned, not sure why, I suggest emailing to admins.

Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders

#105

Post by frank_boyd »

javajosh wrote: post #27
sinak wrote: post #10

A 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 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.

Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders

#106

Post by grey-area »

bparsons wrote: post #25
ceejayoz wrote: post #6

This 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…

What scenario would they use [this] info for?

Economic espionage, sabotaging foreign trade talks which aren't judged to be in the interests of the US, gaining the upper hand in negotiations. The potential utility of this sort of SIGINT is high, if you are willing to engage in amoral behaviour on a massive scale, treating allies as enemies.

So the question it raises is, why were they collecting this information? You can be sure they would not collect it for no reason.

Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders

#107

Post by shrughes »

bobwaycott wrote: post #86
ceejayoz wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why on earth is it acceptable for the NSA--or any other foreign state's intelligence services--to know the internal dealings of foreign governments? You're acting as if that isn't something that should be questioned, and should just be accepted as a general good in both domestic and international policy. Many of us do not think that such a position is tenable or acceptable, much less a proven and legitimate point of…

> All sovereign states--be they allies or rogues--have a legitimate claim to and expectation of privacy where their internal dealings are concerned.

They're governments. They don't have any rights and as local monopolists of violence certainly don't have any expectation of laxity in others' vigilance.

Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders

#108

Post by XorNot »

jsmcgd wrote: post #41
krapp wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but is it correct to spy on your own people and partner countries? It's rude, but I think to a degree it is acceptable, and probably expected. Friendly countries spy on each other all the time. For one thing, friendly countries might not remain friendly forever.

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" or "China feels that" we are not describing the moods of a human being, we're not even describing necessarily the aggregate mood of it's government except in so far as we're using a shorthand because we want to talk about trends in policy making or the types of people being appointed as advisers/policy-makers on whichever issue we are actually talking about specifically.

Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders

#109

Post by XorNot »

bobwaycott wrote: post #48
omonra wrote: post #20

I think we need a bit of context here. US is the hegemon. Therefore it's not reasonable to apply same expectations of how it acts as we do pleasant little countries like Norway or Netherlands (who are probably only independent because US defended them against Germans & Soviets).

And hegemony is a dangerous thing that must be watched closely. It is entirely reasonable to apply expectations to all countries that they not operate in ways that encroach upon the sovereignty and privacy of other nations, especially their allies or even less friendly nations with whom a declared state of war does not exist. The hegemon ought answer to a much stricter standard than the "pleasant little countries" wh…

You realize the first thing you do if you're going to attack someone is tell them one thing and then do another, right?

And that a country's leaders are replaceable components - the country doesn't have a personality, it has a government of thousands of individuals, all who subtly bias its aggregate behaviour in different ways, and whom the replacement of various members can fundamentally alter the country's goals, agenda and long-term interests against other countries?

How then, do you intend to maintain your own security if you've decided to simply take the word of one country's government - again, a shifting gestalt of thousands of individuals and millions of citizens goals - as naively true, when there is absolutely no reason or even motivation for that country not to simply lie to you - likely in many cases without even realizing it, as the messengers don't have the situational-awareness to understand the context of the message.

Re: NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders

#110

Post by grey-area »

omonra wrote: post #20

I think we need a bit of context here. US is the hegemon. Therefore it's not reasonable to apply same expectations of how it acts as we do pleasant little countries like Norway or Netherlands (who are probably only independent because US defended them against Germans & Soviets).

Hegemony depends on the tacit consent of those ruled.

If the US treats the rest of the world as an enemy, and a playground for its war machine and surveillance apparatus, it can expect at some point to earn the enmity of the people in all the countries where it has interfered. This has already happened in the Middle East, East Africa, and South America.

By these actions the US is undermining the only friends it has in the world, and is becoming increasingly isolated.

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