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?
It becomes even more problematic within the Five Eyes cooperation context, because if the NSA is spying on British private citizen communications, and GCHQ is spying on American private citizen communications, and the NSA and GCHQ are exchanging data without any limits, well???
Universal standards of human behavior and the right to personal privacy are hardly limited to some arbitrary nation-state boundary line, are they?
As far as targeted spying on government authorities and military operations, well, that's justified. Indeed it's a good thing that different countries are paying attention to each other in this manner, it has a stabilizing influence and can help to avoid conflicts if everyone knows what everyone else is up to.
> 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?
I don't think it's a matter of what's "ok" or not, it's a matter of winning.
If spying in general is ok, it's of course ok no matter who engages in it. But it's not about whether it's ok or not, it's about what citizens of a particular country want for their own interests. If spying on another nation's citizens makes you safer, you may feel good about that. But being spied on by other nations probably isn't great for you, so it's to be fought against.
I think spying in general is not ok, in the same vein that war is not ok. Unfortunately, neither of these things are avoidable in the world we live in, so obviously I will be more in favor of actions that protect me and mine, and against actions that might make me less safe.
(This is all without addressing the question of whether or not spying on another nation's non-government, non-military population makes anyone safer. I genuinely have no idea.)
> Universal standards of human behavior and the right to personal privacy are hardly limited to some arbitrary nation-state boundary line, are they?
That's a wonderfully idealistic view, and I absolutely agree with it. But that's not the world we live in. Some people are by default adversaries because of the accident of the location of their birth. It's dumb, but that's how it is.
It becomes even more problematic within the Five Eyes cooperation context, because if the NSA is spying on British private citizen communications, and GCHQ is spying on American private citizen communications, and the NSA and GCHQ are exchanging data without any limits, well???
Universal standards of human behavior and the right to personal privacy are hardly limited to some arbitrary nation-state boundary line, are they?
As far as targeted spying on government authorities and military operations, well, that's justified. Indeed it's a good thing that different countries are paying attention to each other in this manner, it has a stabilizing influence and can help to avoid conflicts if everyone knows what everyone else is up to.