> I don't understand why people who make this argument think it's OK for the US government to spy on the private communications of all Chinese citizens but not for it to spy on those of American citizens. Is it OK for China to spy on American citizen's private communications, then?
Because USA is good, so if they are the ones doing the spying, it's just for pretty legit reasons, while chinese people don't speak english so they clearly are up to no good /s
You're being sarcastic, but in a generalized sense that's exactly what it is: of course spying is ok/good when it's your country doing it to someone else! Obviously that spying will enrich your country, and might even make you safer.
But duh, of course it's bad when someone else spies on you! That can only make you less safe.
It's not about "ok", it's about winning the "war".
You're wrong, it's not treason. This is meant to be a legalistic society where crimes are defined by laws, not by how the word for the crime is popularly perceived by laypeople. The US Constitution defines treason. In America, treason is when an American levies war against the United States, or adhering to the Enemies of the US, giving them aid and comfort.
To characterize the UK as an enemy of the US simply isn't true, the US and the UK are not at war; the UK government is not openly hostile to America. If an American gives classified information to the UK they could be convicted of espionage, but treason specifically would not stick. Not even close. Even attempting it would be a complete farce.
Treason charges couldn't even stick during the Cold War, when America and the Soviet Union were engaged in numerous proxy wars but weren't officially at war with each other. Many Americans sold secrets to the Soviet Union, got caught, and were convicted of espionage. But not treason. The Rosenbergs, who gave American nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union? Convicted and executed for conspiracy to commit espionage, not treason. John Walker and his son, US Navy officers who helped the Soviets decrypt millions of messages? Convicted of espionage, but not treason. Jerry Whitworth, Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen.. the list goes on. Convicted of espionage but not treason. The last treason convictions to ever happen in America were for acts committed during WW2.
In that case, would you agree if we modified the GP's statement to say:
"The existence of, and participation in, FVEY is espionage against the people of the United States."
If so, then presumably all the arguments against it are still valid, no? Assuming we can agree that "treason against the people of the United States" and "espionage against the people of the United States" are at least in the same ballpark of badness?
> "The existence of, and participation in, FVEY is espionage against the people of the United States." If so, then presumably all the arguments against it are still valid, no?
No, because again, these crimes have meanings defined by law which you can't simply replace with a meaning derived from the layperson understanding of the word. To argue that Five Eyes is the illegal kind of espionage, you'd have to argue that it actually violates the Espionage Act. Merely fitting it to the colloquial meaning of 'espionage' isn't sufficient.
FVEY is an intelligence cooperation agreement that is invaluable to the security of the world. I don't see how any reasonable person could view it as anything negative.
What exactly is the objection to classifying some information as SECRET//US,UK,CAN,AUS,NZ instead of SECRET//NOFORN ?
What mutual backscratching? No such program was in the Snowden leaks. If you're claiming that the US gets other countries to spy on its citizens, that would be utterly illegal.
You’re correct, it would be utterly illegal and they are in fact doing it via the five eyes program (FVEY)
Essentially what they’ve done is commit treason by colluding with hostile foreign powers to mutually spy on each others citizens, bypassing the pesky constitutional/charter limitations in the process.
In the right political climate we could Nuremberg trial 5 levels deep into the organizations responsible, I’m hopeful for that outcome.
Reminder: “I was just following orders/policy” wasn’t a defense then and it won’t be this time either.
I did. I read the actual documents Snowden leaked instead of relying on wild conspiracy theories people conjured up out of thin air at the time the documents leaked. If you have evidence, you can file a lawsuit. You don't. You're just repeating conspiracy theories that anybody who understands the law easily spots as nonsense.
> It has a well-sourced Wikipedia page for crying out loud
That well-sourced Wikipedia article doesn't say what you claim. Nowhere does it say the US government can access data on its own citizens from other Five Eyes countries.
It says this:
"So far, no court case has been brought against any US intelligence community member claiming that they went around US domestic law to have foreign countries spy on US citizens and give that intelligence to the US."
The source says the following and does not have any information contradicting it:
"'Any allegation that NSA relies on its foreign partners to circumvent U.S. law is absolutely false. NSA does not ask its foreign partners to undertake any intelligence activity that the U.S. government would be legally prohibited from undertaking itself,' Emmel said."
A bunch of conspiracy theorists theorized that these countries could skirt their laws by asking for data from other countries in the intelligence sharing agreement without the proper warrant, but it turned out that they do not.
The page does mention the canadian case and european fallout (though that with conflicting language).
Your premise is faulty however—that something does not exist because there’s not a court case.
- Of course they help each other, why would they even bother to get in touch otherwise?
- Of course warrants are rubber stamped.
- There’s no laws against using third party data.
- No one every gets in trouble… see Clapper lying to Congress on national TV. Oh, except the ones that speak up about the law.
They even have a technical term for it called “parallel construction.”
The important point is they get whatever they want without practical restraint. This whole subthread is an immaterial pedantic angle and waste of time, and I won’t be returning here further.
> Your premise is faulty however—that something does not exist because there’s not a court case.
My premise is that something does not exist because there are no documents claiming it does. Snowden had the chance to leak such documents, but he did not. Despite that, you produced a conspiracy out of thin air as if Snowden had produced such documents.
> - Of course warrants are rubber stamped
Then why haven't we seen thousands of warrants to obtain data from other countries on US citizens used in prosecutions?
> Of course they help each other, why would they even bother to get in touch otherwise
They help each other by sharing intelligence in other countries, not by helping each other break their own laws.
> - There’s no laws against using third party data
Then why doesn't the government just read your email?
> This whole subthread is an immaterial pedantic angle and waste of time, and I won’t be returning here further.
The next time you post conspiracy theories on HN, I will be there.
