Isn't this the explicit purpose of the NSA, to spy on the communications of foreign governments? And aren't EU members' governments doing the same thing against the US?
> Isn't this the explicit purpose of the NSA, to spy on the communications of foreign governments?
In what deranged world-view does being "the explicit purpose" of something make it right?
(and it's not even their explicit purpose, otherwise they'd be called the International Spying Agency ...)
> And aren't EU members' governments doing the same thing against the US?
That's a childish argument. Frankly I don't care if Germany or France or whoever are spying on eachother too. An example from my work with kids, "but he's doing it tooooooo!" doesn't really fly with me, it doesn't matter, they shouldn't be doing it either, but I caught you, now clean that up.
While two EU states spying on eachother is an internal EU matter, I do wonder to what extent EU states are spying on the US. It sounds risky, though. I mean, if we catch a US spy snooping on our diplomats, we can't really throw them in Guantanamo, or anything ...
> In what deranged world-view does being "the explicit purpose" of something make it right?
That is like being shocked and horrified that animal control puts down stray dogs. People don't like to talk about it, a small number of people might be upset by it, but it is a necessary part of civilized society.
We give them our tax dollars for this explicit reason. Please go spy on other countries so that we know what is going on in the world. Congress has been approving their budget every year to continue doing it for the last 62 years.
Call it childish all you want, but every other country in the world has an intelligence service. The EU itself has INTCEN, the UN has UNIT, heck even the Vatican has SRS, that all have the same basic functions as our CIA and NSA.
> That is like being shocked and horrified that animal control puts down stray dogs. People don't like to talk about it, a small number of people might be upset by it, but it is a necessary part of civilized society.
In Finland we don't have stray dogs. No animal control putting them down either. I guess we aren't a civilized society by your standards, assuming your claim is true.
Now that I have shown why your example is not true(or that you are an idiot for thinking Finland is not civilized society, your choice), I have to admit that I still can't think why foreign intelligence during peacetime would be "a necessary part of civilized society". I have never heard any arguments for this, so feel free to be the first. I'm waiting.
I haven't spent enough time thinking about the complex global dynamics of intelligence and counter-intelligence to judge the truthfulness of this statement, but I'm also not sure the necessity of spying is something we should blindly accept without carefully considering the rationale and consequences.
And by the way, it's actually important for people to be shocked and horrified that animal control puts down stray dogs, because there are ways that society can lessen the frequency of such acts (neutering pets, etc.), and knowing about the consequences provides motivation to take preventative steps.
You are likely correct in what you say. However, there has always been the fiction that allies do not spy upon each other, after all, why should they, they're allies.
So, when it emerges that one part of the alliance has been less than forthcoming with another part, it stresses the alliance. Even if this is a normal, though rarely spoken of, aspect of international relations.
So.. the recent events mentioned here have the effect of making the US adopt an apologetic role. As such, it weakens their "soft" power, since their moral authority is weakened. This weakens their influence in a wide number of always-ongoing international negotiations.
The wider effect on commercial activity and how it relates to surveillance is discussed by others here. Personally, I hope it leads to commercial providers of internet communication facilities adopting stringent privacy measures by default, in the manner that certain banks may (or used to) protect your financial information.
The EU is a staunch ally. We have nothing to fear from them, and spying on them can only serve to provoke an embarrassing international incident when we get caught.
My opinion is that if they want to keep something secret, then they have that right, and we shouldn't be prying. If the rest of the world thinks that's crazy, well we can be a good example.
Well, it _is_ their explicit purpose, or how else do you interpret their mission statement?
Other governments doing the same is exactly why the NSA and the CIA can be justified. Not having them would put the US at a serious information disadvantage.
A completely different issue is _what_ and _how much_ information gathering they should be doing. For instance, the US has been complaining about Chinese computer attacks for a long time, and it now seems that the US is at least as guilty in doing this. So the US certainly don't seem to have the moral high ground anymore.
That's not how nation-states work. The US would spy even if no one else spied, just like the US invades other countries despite no serious risk of being invaded and overthrown itself. (Such an invasion would be suicidal; the invader's nation would be vaporized within minutes.)
We could go on: the US incarcerates its populace far more than other nations, even though its populace isn't more genetically predisposed to criminality.
Nation-states are artificial institutions which make war and control their subjects. They're remarkably similar to the mafia model. "Defending its populace" is akin to a protection racket. (For example, the US's actions clearly have the effect of increasing risks, not reducing them.) Dispute resolution (courts, etc) and top-down "democratic" forms are the result of needing to demonstrate some legitimacy lest they be overthrown by their subjects. Even in a rich country like the US, most people still have little ability to participate meaningfully in the legal/political/economic systems; and in presidential elections, very few votes actually count (due to the electoral system).
Since the US is the most powerful nation-state, it's the most violent; that's a correlation that runs through history. In particular, its capacity for violence (military) has no competitors. (It also has the most advanced economy, but it's no longer so advanced in this dimension as it was after WWII.)
I never claimed wouldn't spy is no one else spied. Of course they would. Of course the US isn't concerned with invasion, it's concerned with having an influence, and having democratic or at lest US-friendly trading partners. Just like the USSR had their interests.
What do you think would be a good alternative to nation states? For instance, I think using the US electoral system is a bad example of how people can particilate in their government, so I think it's a bad example if you try to discredit the idea of nations.
This is not to say that the U.S. has always acted in a way that reduces the risk of war. And obviously there's nothing positive to say about the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But the military itself does not inevitably lead to massive violence. Even in Iraq most of the casualties have come from Muslims killing Muslims.
Spying promotes stability. Having too many secrets promotes accidental armageddon. In fact, Germany is a signatory of the open skies treaty that allows military surveillance overflights.
Well yes. But we Europeans see ourselves as US allies and partners ... mostly because US tells us we are. Wanting to be informed what is going on is understandable.
So intrusion in government networks and wide interception of the civilian population communication of a countries that are stable, democracies and partners in NATO and allies in the wars US is waging comes as a somewhat hostile stuff.
US is doing too much spying right now. Too wide, too long a period, too broad. Europe has deep scars and trust issues.
In a sense US should abandon SIGINT and stick to the good old fashioned HUMINT with its allies at least. If you want documents and info there are gentler ways to obtain them.
Do you think "in a sense" that the EU nations should abandon SIGINT and stick to good old fashioned HUMINT? Or maybe a middle of the road position and just have the Five Eyes abstain from SIGINT?
Well I have yet to see something about direct spying and intrusion in US networks by EU government agencies.
Also yeah - the whole dragnets should be scaled back for various reasons. If you intercept and retain everything you have insane SNR that can prove counterproductive in the long run.
Very intensive spying on allies is impolite at best.
I'm being serious. HN is nothing if not ultra-rational (or so we claim). Evidence trumps all. Prove surveillance works, that it's necessary, works better than any conceivable alternative, and that the damage to society is worth it, and your empirical proof will be accepted.
The US has no partners. It has two rivals, Russia and China. It does have allies but they are not remotely equals. The legal fiction may be of equality in international law but the reality is more like the old Chinese view of the world where there was China, Chinese tributary states and rebels.
Yes. I'd be disappointed if NSA wasn't trying to spy on other nations; or if GCHQ wasn't trying to spy on other nations.
That's why they get all that tax money. If anything, we should be pleased that here are some government departments who actually manage to meet their obligations - gather a bunch of intelligence.
What other people do with that intel is perhaps disappointing.
Disregarding the national sovereignty of non-enemy combatant nations is moral because... that's what spies do?
I hear that argument a lot on HN defending state vs state spying. I never really understood the moral basis of it. Or is national security not required to operate under a moral framework?
The first responsibility for a nation is to the security of its people. Everything else is an extraordinary distance down the line.
I know WW1/WW2 are a long ways in the past now, so it's sort of easy to forget the repeating cycle of nation warring, but history is routinely littered with civilization shattering wars. No sense in pretending everything is going to always be peachy, it's not. Knowledge is power, and at times far more valuable than standing armies. I think the famous quote: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure - is appropriate here.
> The first responsibility for a nation is to the security of its people.
[citation needed]
The first responsibility of a democratic government is to reflect the will of the people. If the people decide that security inherently trumps all other values, that is their right. But I don't think much of a society that is not willing to endure any amount of risk for their lives, in order to safeguard their values and quality of life. (I'm an American, and the level of the cowardice in the majority of the public is downright sickening.)
The entire purpose of a Constitution is to put a difficult-to-change upper bound on government power, even if the people want "more nines" of safety.
The first responsibility for a nation is to the security of its people. Everything else is an extraordinary distance down the line.
This is a horrifying line of thinking. It reminds me of the quote, "If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom."
You're manufacturing a meaning that isn't actually there.
A nation protecting its citizens has absolutely nothing to do with creating a police state or obliterating freedom. It would be absurd to claim the opposite: no nation can ever protect its people, because to do so is to destroy freedom.
It is absolutely the first responsibility of any nation to keep its people safe (notice I did not say create a police state, or spy on everybody, or violate the constitution). If you can't do that as a government, then you have no reason to exist.
I think the root of your error is in confusing what a modern politician might mean with the word "security," and what classic liberalism would say when it comes to the responsibility of a nation to ensure the freedom of its people (eg to ensure that they are safe from physical assault both by domestic enemies such as gangs or militias, or by foreign military invasion). You assume when I say security, that I mean Obama's (or Bush's) equivalent framing.
You don't get to decide what the first responsibility of a nation is.
For my part, I'd vote against any party that put security as it's top priority, because the abuses likely to come out of that would be horrifying. Including being the aggressor in unjustified wars.
> I never really understood the moral basis of it. Or is national security not required to operate under a moral framework?
What's moral amongst the nations is not necessarily what's moral between a state and its people.
E.g. in this case bugging E.U. offices might reveal E.U. nations trying to conspire to gain benefit at upcoming international trade negotiations. The immoral measure of spying helps detect and defeat the immoral measure of conspiracy.
There's a reason spies are part of what is called the world's "second oldest profession". I won't even try to pretend it's fully on the up-and-up... but neither is much of what nations do to each other.
Being in receipt of tax revenue is no measure of being a useful department. And how does it work when other countries are found spying on the US or UK? presumably this is also perfectly acceptable.
Well, yeah. If the U.S. was that concerned about spying as a rule, we wouldn't treat with Israel, China or Russia... ever. Undoubtedly there are other nations with an interest in U.S. secrets that simply don't hit the news that often.
The outrage is not because NSA spies on foreign governments. The outrage is because the context of the spying.
If a diplomat get caught spying, he gets deported. If the offending country continues, then the embassy might get closed. If a non-diplomat get caught spying, he gets jailed. Those are the common tools in dealing with spies.
The outcry happens when the spying is on neutral grounds like the European Union offices, or the spying is done in intrinsic globally shared common resource like the Internet. Problem is, the previous tools are not suitable. You can't really kick out U.S. from ever enter the European Union offices as soon the U.S. is found to be spying. Nor can you isolate the U.S. from the Internet when the U.S. is found to be spying there.
Perhaps, but the U.S. has also entered into international agreements not to spy on certain diplomatic channels, though. And even if it were legal, its revelation could do more to isolate and harm U.S. foreign relations than the good that might have come from it.
If they came out tomorrow and declared that they don't spy on the US, I would probably believe them.
Do you know why?
Because there is a complete trust asymmetry between the leaders of some states in Europe and the leaders of the US. When the last government was formed in Germany[1], a guy from the FDP (free democratic party) regularly took his notes and other inofficial documents from the coalition negotiations to the US embassy and presented them to US personnel there, while the negotiations were still going on. Guess what his punishment was, when it came out.
Nothing.
So it seems the leaders of Germany consider the US to be so trustworthy that its spying on them is not seen as problematic. Why would these same people even consider spying on the US, especially since, given the quality of German intelligence services, it is highly unlikely that it would go unnoticed by the US?
Germany as an ally has known for a very long time, dating back to the split between West / East, that the US was spying on it heavily. The only difference with the latest program revelations is, the German politicians have to pretend to be upset about it as a dramatic performance for the people they represent.
Germany spies on the US government? In what way are we doing that?
In real life, the US has been always all over Germany with its surveillance. Easy, because of all the military installations and so many US personal here.
Technically, the US is supposed to be allied with most of those EU member governments. Violating the security of your allies isn't exactly a friendly move.
