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WikiLeaks reveals the NSA spied on Berlusconi and his closest advisors

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Re: WikiLeaks reveals the NSA spied on Berlusconi and his closest advisors

#91

Post by GordonS »

argonaut wrote: post #40
secfirstmd wrote: post #15

While it's arguable that Berlusconi was a sensible target...How does that justify spying on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Afghanistan? Or from previous revelations, UNICEF - the children's agency? FWIW, I've just started laying out one aspect of this debate and how intelligence operation blowback can affect the perception of neutrality of NGOs working on the ground. This increasingly se…

Corruption. Obviously we're both speculating here, but accountability is a serious problem with NGOs, along with corruption/graft/general-wastefulness. So if the US suspected massive (tens of millions of dollars, or more) corruption, that's a plausible reason. I'm not saying it's likely, just that there are possible reasons out there in the world.

Given the US' horrendous abuses of human rights in Guantanamo and abroad, I'd say it's far more likely that they are spying on such people and organisations because they may be negative towards some aspects of US foreign policy.

Essentially, they seem to be looking out for 'dissidents' - the same sort of behaviour that US politicians often berate when other countries, such as India or China, do it (also wrongly!).

Re: WikiLeaks reveals the NSA spied on Berlusconi and his closest advisors

#93

Post by belorn »

pnathan wrote: post #2

In news today, the SIGINT branch of the United States government collected signals intelligence on a key public official in another country; in particular, it did this at a moment of crisis, allowing the United States government to have an edge of knowledge in charting its policies.

The news is not that US SIGINT commit acts of spying against non-hostile nations, but that US SIGINT is no different from all those other nations which US media villainize when they are caught spying.

The day that FOX news no longer talks about russia and china when their spies are caught, those will be the day that everyone else will start ignore news about the NSA.

Re: WikiLeaks reveals the NSA spied on Berlusconi and his closest advisors

#94

Post by vidarh »

adventured wrote: post #80
Iv wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well for us, European citizens, the shock is not that the NSA tries, it is that it succeeds. And that our officials are surprised to learn about the attempts.

NSA has a budget larger than the combined spying budget of the Eurozone members, and it's renowned for being very aggressive and constantly pursuing technical improvement. Why would you be surprised that NSA succeeds? How would you stop them?

It's unsurprising that they succeed some of the time. The extent, on the other hand, is another matter.

Re: WikiLeaks reveals the NSA spied on Berlusconi and his closest advisors

#95

Post by secfirstmd »

GordonS wrote: post #91
argonaut wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corruption. Obviously we're both speculating here, but accountability is a serious problem with NGOs, along with corruption/graft/general-wastefulness. So if the US suspected massive (tens of millions of dollars, or more) corruption, that's a plausible reason. I'm not saying it's likely, just that there are possible reasons out there in the world.

Given the US' horrendous abuses of human rights in Guantanamo and abroad, I'd say it's far more likely that they are spying on such people and organisations because they may be negative towards some aspects of US foreign policy. Essentially, they seem to be looking out for 'dissidents' - the same sort of behaviour that US politicians often berate when other countries, such as India or China, do it (also wrongly!).

Well that would certainly coincide with a good reason why the NSA/GCHQ where spying on Amnesty International.

Re: WikiLeaks reveals the NSA spied on Berlusconi and his closest advisors

#96

Post by chris_wot »

dmix wrote: post #45

Too bad the newspaper decided to go with the "NSA is spying on x president" headline rather than focusing on the content of the spying (involving details relevant to Italian politics and history) which is clearly the intended goal in releasing this. The responses here on HN are sadly predictable as a result and likely will draw a similar response from the public. Wikieaks has never really had a moral agenda like Snow…

> Wikieaks has never really had a moral agenda like Snowden in regards to why they are releasing the information in the first place. Assange has repeatedly stated that he simply believes all secret information should be released. In the process they hope to expose corruption in the political systems.

You might not like it or agree with it, but that IS their moral agenda!

Re: WikiLeaks reveals the NSA spied on Berlusconi and his closest advisors

#97

Post by gadders »

belorn wrote: post #93
pnathan wrote: post #2

In news today, the SIGINT branch of the United States government collected signals intelligence on a key public official in another country; in particular, it did this at a moment of crisis, allowing the United States government to have an edge of knowledge in charting its policies.

The news is not that US SIGINT commit acts of spying against non-hostile nations, but that US SIGINT is no different from all those other nations which US media villainize when they are caught spying. The day that FOX news no longer talks about russia and china when their spies are caught, those will be the day that everyone else will start ignore news about the NSA.

And here we have Moral Relativism in action... Russia and China are an order of magnitude more oppressive than the US.

Re: WikiLeaks reveals the NSA spied on Berlusconi and his closest advisors

#99

Post by tobltobs »

gadders wrote: post #97
belorn wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The news is not that US SIGINT commit acts of spying against non-hostile nations, but that US SIGINT is no different from all those other nations which US media villainize when they are caught spying. The day that FOX news no longer talks about russia and china when their spies are caught, those will be the day that everyone else will start ignore news about the NSA.

And here we have Moral Relativism in action... Russia and China are an order of magnitude more oppressive than the US.

Isn't your comment a good example for "Moral Relativism" itself?

Re: WikiLeaks reveals the NSA spied on Berlusconi and his closest advisors

#100

Post by gadders »

tobltobs wrote: post #99
gadders wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And here we have Moral Relativism in action... Russia and China are an order of magnitude more oppressive than the US.

Isn't your comment a good example for "Moral Relativism" itself?

No. Moral relativism would be saying "everyone is equally good; we shouldn't judge them because they don't believe in democracy; all cultures are equally valid".
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