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More Details Emerge On How the US Is Bugging Its European Allies
dryriver writes with this excerpt from the Guardian: "U.S. intelligence services are spying on the European Union mission in New York and its embassy in Washington, according to the latest top secret U.S. National Security Agency documents leaked by the whistleblower Edward Snowden. One document lists 38 embassies and missions, describing them as 'targets.' It details an extraordinary range of spying methods used against each target, from bugs implanted in electronic communications gear to taps into cables to the collection of transmissions with specialised antennae. Along with traditional ideological adversaries and sensitive Middle Eastern countries, the list of targets includes the E.U. missions and the French, Italian and Greek embassies, as well as a number of other American allies, including Japan, Mexico, South Korea, India and Turkey. ... One of the bugging methods mentioned is codenamed Dropmire, which, according to a 2007 document, is 'implanted on the Cryptofax at the E.U. embassy, DC' – an apparent reference to a bug placed in a commercially available encrypted fax machine used at the mission. The NSA documents note the machine is used to send cables back to foreign affairs ministries in European capitals."
No shit we're bugging embassies. They do the same things. Their governments are irresponsible if they aren't doing the same things to ours. This is just politicians pandering to the ignorant. Oh by the way, this doesn't support the Snowden "White Knight" image.
Who needs, uh, Look !! The US is not your ally !! It is your savior !! That goes double for you, France !!
We know countries spy on each other for political capital and leverage, even allies. They embarrass leaders they don't like with smears and leaks. The give opposition leaders they do like, intel and tips. Trying to influence elections, trying to learn trade secret that aid their corps.
It's a nasty game, but it's a known game.
So WTF is GCHQ doing, giving NSA a tap on 300 lines into Britain, which almost certainly contains information on British people, companies and politics?
Which side are you on there in GCHQ?
So how does this relate to "war on terrorism"? This is plain and simple espionage, most probably for economic gain.
"Friends spying on friends" is not something new and unusual, despite what at least 1 German politician implied. The US has arrested Israeli spies in decades past. Israel has arrested US spies. It may be deplorable, but it's universal. Raising a ruckus about it is just a sideshow.
Snowden apparently originally thought that this was part of his job and was OK with it. What allegedly turned him was when he realized that a lot of what he was doing was unrelated to spying on other nations, other nationals and terrorists, but was spying on US citizens even when there was absolutely no reason to think they were doing anything worth spying on.
Everything the US has been accusing China of doing like sticking backdoors in communications equipment, the US has been doing it it's allies?
So much for don't buy Chinese, sounds like it's more risky to buy US equipment because at least there's now some hard evidence that US equipment contains backdoors, with China it was all just unproven speculation.
Those countries are probably spying on us as well. And our government has a responsibility to know what other governments are doing, to the best of our abilities.
That said, it shows how much damage Snowden has done to publicly reveal this undoubtedly top secret information. He's a traitor.
Nice to know what your friends really think of you. Smiling and shaking hands for the press while someone from one of the 3 letter agencies places a bug in your bag or jacket. Sickening hypocrisy!
Much of the to-fro about reciprocal spying to get around the rule that the cia cannot spy on americans is very misleading.
At the end of the day, the most of the justification fors these violations of privacy is the "terror"spiel.
Perhaps the French Peoples privacy is sold-out to MI6 and vice-versa, but the wild-card-data-elephant in this blogroom is the israelis.
the EU building is full of multinational-traitors to their own country who see all people within Schengen as the same (ribbit!).
The funny thing is, the Germans have an innate distaste for froggies-legs!
The EU building (in Brussels) which had its telephony and inter/intranet compromised is similar (somehow) to the wiring-up of the Capitol Building in washington dc. The private, for-profit company that won the tender to wire up the Capitol Building was named "Foxcomm". Hmmmm, that sounds familiar, something to do with the Red Chinese......?
Keeps releasing his shit bit by bit and let's the NSA accumulate lies to the public all the time.
I bet the final release will be recordings of American politicians - both parties, both Houses, entire administration - the NSA has made.
Gonna be fun watching them trying to weasel-word their way out of that.
This is like a newspaper cartoon series with the artist getting better each week.
You Americans are sooooooo screwed. And it was about time too. Perhaps you'll learn to pay attention when you vote now. There are more than two choices you know.
This just confirm how much hypocrisy reign in all USA propaganda pumped foreign policies and explain why NATO is still up and running after 60 years: European people rightly demand to quit NATO, unfortunately invertebrate European governors aren't still prepared to give up this sort of economic/power trading deal. They get what they deserve now.I only hope there's more material to expose how European countries and their trusted Allied (aka Big Brother) work out their businesses.
I think we can all distinguish between spying on one's own citizens and spying on foreigners, in particular in foreign lands. That of course includes governments. Normally this kind of stuff stays under the radar, but this is not the first time it has happened. Israel has been caught quite a few times spying on the US and running agents to further their own national interests. France has a long history of doing corporate espionage on behalf of their own industries. The Brits have always had their fingers in everything.
Spying isn't just about military stuff. It is often about economics and politics and knowing what others are planning and doing (vs what they might say publicly).
I just cannot believe it! Countries around the world spy on each other?? What a remarkable revelation, who would'a thought?. Perhaps next we'll find out that corporations act in their greedy self interest or that middle school girls are catty. Thank you Edward Snowden for making the f*ing obvious even more obvious!
...there is a possibility that Snowden may be a "false flag" to discredit leakers. I'm not saying he is or isn't, but Naomi Wolf says it better than me - she's a writer and journalist with a proven record on whistleblower and civil rights issues... WELL worth looking up for End of America alone).
Snowden may very well be the real deal... but it's just worth thinking a step ahead and not balancing the foundations on him or any one person. These issues are much bigger than any single entity anyway... the problems are systemic. We need to act, and act positively despite the potential for political tricks.
The resulting outrage will be highly amusing. Even more so when other agencies like the CIA find *they're* being monitored.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
It's pretty informative to see all the AC posts in this thread... what is everyone afraid of?!?
Oh, wait... the NSA is watching and listening.
Seriously folks, this is BS and needs to stop. The US govt via the NSA should NOT be performing this level of spying on trusted allies or US citizens not suspected of any wrongdoing. As an American living in the EU, it makes me sick that my home country is engaged in this activity.
See:
GB ...
Israel
Germany
Russia
China
It's what intelligence agencies do. It's what they were intended to do.
The issue is that the U.S. intelligence agency charged with spying on the rest of the world has turned against its masters. The NSA and CIA are supposed to spy on foreign governments/nationals. Now we have proof that they regularly spy on the entirety of the U.S. population without cause, warrant, oversight, or any other kind of restriction. This is a situation that has been suspected for decades, but now we have proof! Yet, it doesn't seem like anything is going to change. Already, attention has been turned away from the critical matter and now the focus is on a whistle blower witch hunt and a whole lot of hand waving.
'Pay no attention top the man behind the curtain. Look over there. Boogeymen! Cower! Fear! Let us protect you by stripping your privacy and rights.'
I'm a staunch supporter of Snowden's revealing how the NSA was violating the 4th Amendment, but it's a shame that he's now revealing stuff like this. It will weaken the outrage over the US government wiping its ass w/ the Bill of Rights, because people will say that now he is endangering national security by revealing this information. He is shooting himself in the foot. TPTB will also have more justification for going after him. Having access to secret information beyond what is necessary for making his original case about spying on US citizens makes him less secure, not more. It also lessens the sympathy he'll get from Americans.
P.S. The latest "revelations" don't shock me, I doubt they shock TPTB in other countries, and the only effect on foreign relations will be the usual faux outrage. It doesn't bother me that the NSA is doing this, in fact I'd be more upset (or at least surprised) if they weren't. I also don't think it will do much if anything to harm national security, but he's still playing it wrong.
There is obviously some expectation of privacy in diplomacy, e.g. Diplomatic baggage is still treated as sealed. But obviously the US considers everything else to be completely fair game, including crypto-protected messaging. Hardly seems like playing according to the spirit of the rules. So, yes, it is plain and simple espionage against allies. This is surely not going down well in Europe.
If you were in one of the many countries the US was spying on would you extradite Snowden?
http://boingboing.net/2013/07/01/glenn-greenwald-gives-a-public.html
Glenn says they have a document from the NSA. They're now can record 1 billion cell phone calls per day.
You cannot elect a President if General Alexander can go through the candidates and pick out any that he doesn't like and leak their phone calls. You cannot have a democracy in that world.
We cannot elect a Prime Minister if General Alexander can leak his phone calls and monitor his communications. General Alexander will be able to pick and choose our elected officials by selectively smearing.
You cannot have a democracy in that world.
GCHQ, you have a job, and part of that job is to protect Brits from foreign powers spying on them.
I think this puts it into perspective. Still do not think it is right. Just shows how long they have been doing this.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/06/how-a-30-year-old-lawyer-exposed-nsa-mass-surveillance-of-americans-in-1975/
tl;dr version ... going on since at least 1950. Under different program names. All 'just ended recently'.
This has been going on a LONG time. 9/11 was just an excuse to make it legal and retroactive immunity in 2008. Some companies saw it as their duty to help the NSA. Others lawyered up. Others had a 'yeah the other guys do it too' attitude.
I doubt they will be all that outraged. They singed it into law letting them do it.
yes, but if someone tries to knife Snowdon, and an undercover NSA agent deters the knifeman, wtf would Snowdon be expected to do? run for the presidency!
Yet 911 still happened.
I doubt they will be all that outraged. They singed it into law letting them do it.
from http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/jesselyn-radack-points-out-problem-fi -
STEPHANOPOULOS: But these surveillance programs, as the president has pointed out, were passed by the Congress, are overseen by a court.
RADACK: Well, both of those are incorrect. Congress has not been fully informed. Only the--
STEPHANOPOULOS: They passed the laws, there is oversight, or there is (inaudible).
RADACK: OK, but there is a secret interpretation of Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which nobody knows, except for the Intel Committee of Congress, and even they say that they think most Americans would be appalled by that. And to say that it’s been approved by the courts is a misnomer, because it gives the impression that federal courts have approved this, when in reality, it’s the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has rubber-stamped every single--
STEPHANOPOULOS: Which is a federal court.
RADACK: No, it is a secret court set up at the Justice Department that has federal judges on it. But last year, it approved 2,000 out of 2,000 applications. They hear only the government’s side, and they have never -- they have rejected an application one time since 1978.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
..to this lately, and most of them were in the "We are big, bad, mean motherfuckers so of course we do this and if you don't like it go fuck yourself or we nuke you" (paraphrased, not literally uttered.. even though nuclear weapons HAVE been mentioned once or twice in the discussion.. I think it was on gizmodo or some site like that..)
Guys, just turn around the situation and it would be China doing the same in the US.. wouldn't your outcry be as big as ours (German here), maybe even bigger?
Just because you have the biggest guns doesn't mean laws are not for you anymore, just as a reminder..
Also, having the biggest Aircraft Carrier in the block means nothing, if you actually would take on an opponent that can fight back.. (I've read up on a lot of NATO maneuvers where even our old diesel subs blatantly sunk US carriers and the commanders didn't even believe the sub commanders that they were there, until they surfaced like 500 feet away from the carrier in full broadside view of the torpedo tubes..)
Really, if you ask me, as a German with a strong national pride myself, the only political answer to this would be simple (and something our corrupt and incompetent government would NEVER do..): close all US bases on German soil, including Ramstein etc., remove every single American non-civilian personell from the country immediately..
and while we're at it consider if this constitutes an "armed" (as in cyber-warfare) attack against Germany (and our Allies) as based on NATO Article 5 (Casus foederis).
Also, leaving NATO would be another option.
I wouldn't be surprised if individual member states are bugging each other routinely to obtain an advantage when it comes to trade talks, treaty agreements and all the rest. I wonder how the EU even manages to police that let alone develop its own pan-European security agency with which to counter international threats.
...of where you fall in the political spectrum, I think that everyone can agree that, as of late, the Administration has been exceptionally sloppy, amateurish, and far too invasive (due to sheer laziness).
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Prism is to collect metadata following a budgeted strategy for the war on terror.
The NSA says that metadata has saved lives I think it means they crossed
the line between metadata and data for terrorism true positives.
Ethically they dont cross the line for real data to help us citizen in distress.
I think it implies that they collect economic data to help us citizen as a whole.
Unless it would be unfair use of taxpayers money. I mean us taxpayers money
because it may harm foreign countries microeconomies.
Everything that is "wrong" with the US today can explained by that 1947 incident. Afterall, war is good for business. Peace, of course, is good for business too. Afterall, even in the worst time someone makes a profit.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
This is what intelligence agencies do. And this is what they should be doing. I would expect American intelligence agencies to be spying on every foreign government. Of course I'd hope they're spending more resources spying on China and Russia and Saudi Arabia than France and the U.K., but at the end of the day, nations don't have friends, only interests.
Remember when the French played coy about if they'd put their military under NATO command if the Russians invaded West Germany? Knowing whether that was just the French being the French or if they seriously planned to sit out WWIII would have been really helpful if you were responsible for U.S. deployments in the Fulda gap. That's why you spy on your allies. Gentlemen don't read each other's mail. Which is why we should avoid hiring gentlemen to work at CIA.
Everyone should (and no doubt did) expect this kind of thing. But in revealing methods and practices and details of operations Snowden has actually done something wrong. Revealing the details of NSA's pervasive spying on American citizens was a public service. Dude should get a medal for that. But revealing the details of how the U.S. is spying on foreign governments today is kinda the textbook definition of a traitor.
On balance I'd say Snowden has still been a net positive -- the NSA operation is evil, immoral, and unconstitutional. It's worth losing some diplomatic intelligence in order to expose it. But it's not like that was the inevitable price -- he chose to reveal this new stuff in addition to the earlier revelations.
How times have changed.
"Gentlemen don't read other gentlemen's mail." That's what Henry L. Stimson said in 1929 when he shut down the State Department's code breaking operations. Stimson was President Hoover's Secretary of State at the time.
Your "fair share" is NOT in my wallet.
"Can't you all be first class trading partners, yet?!?!?"
"Are you STILL in a recession?!?!"
"Why won't you embrace more about our CULTURE?!?!?"
Yeah, that'd bug me too.
To convert an AC to an identity, means digging into the Internet history database and grabbing some emails or other identifiers, in my case they grabbed an identity document. I you do that, it means they have to abuse their power to remove the AC, which in turn helps proves that NSA has been misusing this data.
Because to use the database for PR purposes is clearly an abuse of power. Criticism of NSA isn't terrorism...yet.
It may be a secret abuse, but there's an analyst who does it, and he's thinking at the back of his mind that this isn't right. A potential Edward Snowden hero figure.
Agreed. I think that Snowden hurts his own credibility and his self-professed cause by spilling out all the details of United States espionage activities overseas. Had Snowden had a compelling whistleblower case by simply reporting on US domestic spying; many would view him as a patriot (as he self-proclaimed) for reporting on these abuses. However, muddies the water tremendously, I would even argue crosses the line, by providing details of US intelligence activities overseas, not just to the European Union but also to the Chinese and the Russians. Those actions directly harming his home country, undermining American intelligence activities against nations that have comprehensive espionage programs targeted at the United States (this includes European nations).
The cameras installed in copy machines. I recall reading about this many years ago and IIRC it wasn't just soviet copy machines. But memory of the article is too faded. Spying is nothing new.
"which they both appear to be abiding by, based on the leaks so far"
Based on the leaks so far, USA is spying on its own people AND Brits, and UK is spying on its own people AND Americans. So no, you're reading different leaks. Or trying to misrepresent what the leaks show in the hopes people haven't read them.
Snowden is Hot Potato. Agree with him or not, there's no country in their right mind who would want him on the premises. He was asked by HK/Chine to leave, and I'm pretty sure Russia can't wait to get him on a plane.
Unless he also has information about Russia (or whatever country he's in) and they find out. In which case he'll be in some pretty Hot Water.
Great plan, USA,
"Let's expose a controversy that we're bugging our allies to distract from the controversy that we're bugging our citizens."
I presume, next, they will expose a controversy that the executive branch is bugging the supreme court to distract from this one. Then ...I don't know why we swallowed the fly.
Who uses faxes anymore? And encrypted faxing? Oooh, so much more secure. How about secure FTP or encrypted e-mail?
... and I don't like to be spied on by anyone for any reason.
"We are big, bad, mean motherfuckers so of course we do this and if you don't like it go fuck yourself or we nuke you"
I live in the US, listened to and read plenty of news/reactions about this and have yet to hear the utter BS you made up. Couldn't be further from the truth.
Here. These are the NSA procedures, they're a fake procedural protection for Americans and NO PROTECTION AT ALL for the UKUSA allies. They might think they have an agreement, but they're noobs!
http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/national/inner-workings-of-a-top-secret-spy-program/282/
All British data is going straight into that database, and since the taps are into and out of Britain, it is mostly British data.
The guys that sneak in and plant a bug on the fax machine of the EU... that's what GCHQ is doing to Britain.
After 4 decades on this planet it still never ceases to surprise me that "everyone does it" or "everyone else is just as bad" still seems like a logical defense to some people.
Would raping little girls be okay if more people did it? If only it were more popular then none of us would have to feel bad about being a total piece of shit. The kind of person who does stuff like that does it because they don't care about the little girl that they are going to hurt or even kill. That other person, that other consciousness means nothing to them. Only their narrow interests matter. Sound familiar?
Pathological liars of all sorts are always adamant about how no one else is any different. "Everyone lies", they say. Dishonest salesmen and cops are the same. They defend their bad behavior by saying that everyone else is just as bad. Uh huh. As soon as I hear someone say that sort of thing I immediately know not to trust them or believe a word they say. And I'll keep a close eye on my wallet and all my other possessions as well. There's a good chance they lack any sense of empathy, of right or wrong: what we call a conscience.
Well I've got news for some of you. Not everyone will lie and steal even from their so called friends whenever they think they can get away with it. I have known a few pathological liars in my life and as soon as I discovered who and what they really were I broke off any contact with them. Period.
I wouldn't be friends with someone who planted bugs in my home. In fact I would consider them the opposite of friends. They wouldn't be welcome anywhere near my home ever again. It would be pretty clear that their intentions were not good. If I were one of the countries mentioned in these leaks I would immediately break off all diplomatic relations with the US. I mean, what the fuck is the point when it's obvious you are being treated in a manner indistinguishable from how one treats an enemy? At the very least it would seem sensible to strip search and cavity search anyone carrying a US passport who wants to enter or leave an embassy/consulate or any other sensitive location. Are you quasi-sociopaths starting to see the problem now?
And how does one draw the line between just being naughty and an act of outright war? Seems like that line could be drawn very finely indeed. If in our eavesdropping we discover that a foreign diplomat holds beliefs that seem inimical to our interests would it be okay to assassinate them? How about just fucking up their life so badly that they choose to quit their jobs? Maybe infecting one of their children with HIV for instance? After all, what is the point of making so much effort to gather all that intelligence data if we do not use it to further our interests? Isn't that what this is all about? Our interests? Aside from "everyone else is doing it", that is the justification for this behavior is it not? Of course it couldn't possibly be in our interest to treat our allies like we ourselves would want to be treated: with respect and honesty. No. So much better to prepare for outright war even with such highly unlikely foes as, say, Canada.
Espionage is fine when you are in a shooting war with someone and it's tolerable when it seems that a shooting war is imminent, but it is neither honorable nor civilized behavior. Not even if you have proof that the other side is doing the same to you, which I don't think any of you currently have by the way.
I'm sorry, but just assuming that everyone else is just as amoral and dishonest and untrustworthy and two-faced and is also treating us in a way that is indistinguishable from an enemy is not sufficient. Not if we want to be seen as the good guys. Clearly any such pretense would be laughable now. The enemy is us. We are the baddies.
Even if we knew with absolute 100% certainty that all of the people we were bugging were bugging us back just as successfully the old two wrongs don't make a right rule still applies. If we discovered that one of our allies were systematically raping our female diplomats would we respond in kind? I would certainly hope not.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Evil paranoid people who play underhanded always believe that others do exactly the same as they do.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Bush and Obama will have a hard week trying to politik-speak their way out of this.
Targeted espionage for economic-industrial advantage is NOT a 'War On Terror.'
Twenty-five years ago Mexico was in delicate negotiations to restructure its foreign debt. The Mexican ambassador and former minister of the Treasury (Hacienda) was personally handling the negotiations in Washington.
Strategy planning was done overnight with the President of Mexico and, this goes without saying, utmost secrecy was needed. The only method considered secure enough was to fly the ambassador on a two seater supersonic jet fighter back to the Mexican capital every night for a face to face meeting in an undisclosed location and then fly him back to Washington the next morning.
There is obviously some expectation of privacy in diplomacy, e.g. Diplomatic baggage is still treated as sealed.
That's quite a stretch! All you can say is that either Snowden has not been aware of espionage into diplomatic baggage, or he is but he hasn't leaked it yet. It seems abundantly clear to me that the US would be happy to do espionage on diplomatic baggage as long as they believe that they could get away with it. I suspect that the real problem with breaking into diplomatic baggage is that such baggage is likely to have systems that would reveal if they were opened or otherwise examined (e.g. with xray). I'm sure the US has labs working on how to defeat such systems and I wouldn't be surprised if that research turns out to have been successful. Why would they be willing to bug an embassy and it's encrypted fax and then refuse to look at their mail?
maybe we'll learn that Mandiant's APT-1 report was a huge piece of crap with nonsense sprinkled all over. Who'd have guessed...
It reminds me of them sweet sweet WMDs.
Why then is Bradley Manning being done up like a turkey for leaking diplomatic stuff? Why is Snowdon being labelled a spy for it?
If these secrets are expected to be discovered by the USA and are justified to them, why isn't it justified when someone "spies" on the USA?
What really irks me is shit like this: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/27/19166043-obama-not-scrambling-jets-to-get-nsa-leaker-snowden Whereby we now have US Trade Representatives considering revoking trade privileges of an entire country (Ecuador) because the administration has a personal vendetta against Snowden. It is really sickening what our government is willing to do to cover its own ass.
Ignoring "But he does it too!" schoolyard "justification", you will beed to get some proof of your accusations.
Remember that you need to find evidence of equivalent scale. We have "mass murder" and "murder" as different crimes (same with rape and gang rape, or even weapons and weapons of mass destruction) for a reason.
Given the ammount the USA have spied out on their "friends", there should be plenty of evidence of the scale of these countries' spying on the rest of the world, right?
So until you get some evidence, drop the "Do you think they don't do it too?". It doesn't matter what I think. What is the evidence?
I hope this will cause European governments to grow some balls. The US really isn't well served by having a bunch of subserviant mediocrities governing Europe. We were making a lot more progress when the Soviet Union, evil empire that it was, actually presented a real ideological, military, and technological challenge to the US.
(Oh, and next time, pick your Nobel Prize winners more carefully.)
Legal or not, it's still unethical. That's what it's "embarrassing" to be caught.
It seems abundantly clear to me that the US would be happy to do espionage on diplomatic baggage as long as they believe that they could get away with it.
Yeah, as they say "There are no rules in love and war" -- so which is it? It appears that the US is no longer getting away with playing the game as if there were no rules.
These actions might meet your expectations of your government (in the US), but it doesn't meet other countries' expectations of how the US should be acting. The difference between expectation and reality is what is going to bring consequences. For diplomats it is quite personal -- their private exchanges about negotiations were potentially being revealed to people they were sitting at a table with hours later. There is personal embarrassment here apart from anything else. Diplomacy is all about carefully controlled presentation of positions, and that has been violated in the eyes of negotiators. Where is there any trust now for future negotiations? EU-US trade pact coming up soon.
Angela Merkel comes off looking like a real asshole, IMO. When it came out that the US was spying on US and German citizens, she defended it as necessary for the war on terror. Then she finds out we're spying on her fellow oligarchs and all of a sudden it's an unjustifiable violation of trust.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
No offense to you, but the person you are quoting, "RADACK," is a nitwit. The FISA court is a federal court that deals with secret material, not a secret court. Issuing search warrants is not an adversarial process to begin with, and wouldn't be at any other court. There is more.
Secret Court's Oversight Gets Scrutiny
Michael Mukasey, who was attorney general under President George W. Bush, said in an interview that the lack of rejections by the FISA court doesn't mean the court is a rubber stamp. He notes the court sometimes modifies orders and that the Justice Department's national-security division is careful about the applications it presents to the court.
Of 1,856 FISA applications the Justice Department made in 2012, the court denied none but modified 40, the Justice Department reported.
Timothy Edgar, who was a top lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, said he believed the FISA court was a rubber stamp until he saw the process firsthand when he became a senior civil-liberties official in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in 2006. "It's definitely not a rubber stamp," he said in an interview Sunday. "On a very superficial level, they tend to approve pretty much everything that comes before them. They do meet in secret. It's just more complicated than that."
The reason so many orders are approved, he said, is that the Justice Department office that manages the process vets the applications rigorously. The lawyers there see themselves not as government advocates so much as neutral arbiters of the law between the executive branch and the courts, he said, so getting the order approved by the Justice Department lawyers is perhaps the biggest hurdle to approval. "The culture of that office is very reluctant to get a denial," he said.-- more
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
A lot, if not most, of the diplomatic baggage is sent by courier, so there is a human there carrying a diplomatic passport to accompany it. Many of those couriers are just normal people who can travel on very short notice. Someone may get a call to carry a bag from the US to Lithuania and have to leave in two hours. Even then governments will frequently attempt to harass the courier into allowing them to inspect the bag.
Source: A while ago I read the personal account of a woman who was a diplomatic courier.
Fuck you guys.
US spies on them. Why are people shocked by this?
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
And who has placed limits on US espionage so far? I don't see anything happening.
Then your expectations are wrong. It isn't the US government's job to protect the privacy of Europeans, and all this anger directed against the US isn't going to change anything at all.
Europeans should direct their anger at their own governments, for selling them out to the US, for not protecting them from US spying, and for spying on their own citizens.
Until Europeans actually get their act together in Europe, both Americans and Europeans will continue to get screwed.
the sky is blue and the oceans are wet.
So no one has noticed yet? The US spies on UK citizens (they're foreign, so it's a-okay). The UK spies on US citizens (they're foreign, so it's tickity-boo). The two then share all their info.
Add in Harpers' Canada and Panopticon Achieved.
Actually, you are wrong. Right now there will be very hard questions asked, and USA will pay the bill. It is not fair, i know, but that's the life, accept it.
Too bad the court rubberstamps unjust warrants so the government can collect metadata on everyone. If you defend this, you despise freedom.
Oh, like Europe has any leverage to get the US to do anything. What? Merkel would threaten the US with a BMW embargo? French waiters would become surly and refuse to speak English with tourists?
And what "bill" would that be that we have to "pay"? Withdrawing troops from Europe and ceasing spy operations in Europe would be a great money savings for the US. Bring it on, I say, the sooner the better.
It just strikes to me as naive to use Windows and Intel hardware to store state secrets. Or using Israeli firewalls (Checkpoint) China got it right with Red Flag Linux and Loongson.
US is not "closed" economy. They need the other countries to buy US stuffs, and to buy it with dollars. Remember Iraq? And what happened when they decided to replace USD with EU?
Now, i wonder, who is going to pay the US debt, if no one, but USA is trading with these little, greeny pesky things....
Damn, for such a supposedly low level employee, Snowden sure seemed to be able to garner a lot of intel. Just think of the stuff that is going on that he couldn't get his hands on.
Any Country "has every incentive to get an advantage in the economic and research realms by spying."
US did the same at one point.
Also OP's point has nothing to do with China spying/not-spying, but rather pointing out that there is now evidence that US IS spying.
Have you looked at the German-US or French-US trade imbalance? It may not be economically rational, but less of that kind of trade would be politically popular in the US, and rather unpopular in Europe.
If nobody but the US were trading with US dollars, the US dollar would be worthless. In that case, Europe would hold a shitload of worthless US debt.
Any more brilliant ideas?
No one who stays informed is hardly surprised, everybody who chooses to remain blissfully ignorant hardly cares.
The reveal is not so much .gov spying as much as on who's behalf it's being done. And the picture has been out there for the snapping; just a matter of focusing the dots.
Evidence US .gov spying on behalf of corporate interests will probably be the next big shoe to drop. Specially considering how many private contractors our .gov is enlisting.
Corporate espionage has been around for a long time, and, it most likely has all along been entangled with government. Just not to the incredible degree it is today. Knowledge has become a growth industry and D.C. is in the thick of it, but for a historical record it would be worth looking at our old friend AIG:
Corporate espionage probably has it's roots around the time AIG (OSS via Vander Starr then Greenberg ), now AIU, purchased the "private spy agency" Kroll Associates; which began operations in 1972, 3 years after Mo Greenberg took the helm of AIG. Maurice was an omnipotent, a Fed Chair, CFR chair, Kissinger became his lap dog in China.
In 1993, AIG became Kroll Associates largest investor. Kroll was notorious during the 1980s as the "CIA of Wall Street" due to the prevalence of former CIA, FBI, Scotland Yard, British secret service and British Special Air Service men Kroll employed for corporate espionage in takeover bids, as well as for destabilization of foreign nations.
In December 1997, Kroll merged with armored car manufacturer O'Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt to form The Kroll-O'Gara Company. www.krollworldwide.com It's said that O'Gara had been responsible for the security of all US-Presidents since 1945. Worth noting: from 1993 to 2001 Kroll Associates were responsible for World Trade Center Security. That includes Building#7, C-n-C for bio-warfare. In August 2001, Kroll Associates was renamed to Kroll Inc.
May 2004, Marsh sent a 100 million dollar offer to Julius Kroll, looking to buy into a multi-billiion dollar industry filled with former military types, CIA, FBI, DEA operatives and any number of lettered agencies charged with the security of our nation. Kroll was and remains the grandcentral of information.
(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kroll_Inc)
In October 2004, Eliot Spitzer filed suit against Marsh, citing them for steering clients to preferred insurers with whom the company maintained lucrative payoff agreements, and for soliciting rigged bids for insurance contracts from the insurers;
He accused the company of having colluded, for years, to "cheat customers in an elaborate charade of price fixing and bid rigging" , including insider-trading by Marsh in betting against American Airlines.
The three insurers he named were the AIG, Zurich America Insurance Company and Ace Ltd. AIG was run by Maurice Greenberg, his son Jeffrey ran Marsh & McLennan and his son, Evan, was boss of Ace.
Kroll CEO, Michael Cherkasky became Marsh CEO in response to Spitzer's investigation. In January 2006, Cherkasky persuaded Spitzer to drop the civil charges against Marsh in exchange for $US850 million to clients that Marsh & McLennan had defrauded. On February 9, 2006, AIG settled in court for 1.6B,
In 1990 AIG purchased control of International Lease Finance Corp (ILFC), ILFC leases the full line of both Airbus & Boeing aircraft and made AIG fully responsible for the planes it leases.
So much for preamble. Last December, AIG announced it would sell 90% of ILFC to private interests in China. That hasn't turned out to well and since then AIG's taking major hits on ILFC.
But IFLC did serve them well for a time. As noted by others:
"As a order maker to the manufacturers, it allows for a virtual takeover of the manufacturing lines by claiming such a large inventory. This allows leverage against the manufacturing companies as a group. So, who ever controls AIG wags the tail of huge de
resist propaganda
EU grants asylum to Snowden. That would send the message home quite effectively.
Yep, that's the reason no one YET abandoned the US greeny, but if USA continues to stretch the limits....who knows, people may decide they had enough, and just leave the ship, no matter the consequences. I just wonder, is USA stupid enough to force its hand because of some stupid spy triller??? I know i know, most of americans are idiots, but the ones that are the real leaders (of which you have not heard of), are not going sacrifice everything, for idiots like you.
Arrogance and stupidity like yours is why Europe keeps failing. Until you people get your act together, the US politicians are going to keep walking all over you. And as I keep saying: that's neither good for Europe nor for the US.
The US has been intercepting diplomatic communications for almost 100 years, ever since telegrams came into use. It is a part of the culture of diplomacy just like formal parties.
Because where are the leaks detailing how foreign governments spy on the US and influence US elections?
The resulting outrage will be highly amusing. Even more so when other agencies like the CIA find *they're* being monitored.
If the US is bugged by foreign governments the same way does that make news? Or is it only news if the US government does it?
Yes everyone spies on everyone, but it is still embarrassing when one is caught red-handed.
Yeah, I think I've read that the court actually rejects a small percentage of the 'applications', too. Every pundit has to have their spin.
However, I think the actual point is that we have a court outside the regular hierarchy, which means that just a few people are creating the judicial "consensus" [*], and they're issuing a steady stream of secret rulings based on a secret interpretation of the law that only a handful of legislators are privy to, and aren't allowed to speak about.
I.e., very serious lack of congressional (and public) oversight.
But then, Congress is supposed to decide who we're at war with, and when.
[*] Like the patent court...
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
As Obama and Bush, his guest on Air Force One AF1, leaves Africa in destination for Washington D.C. the European Union CAN launch Euro-Fighter jets to interdict AF1 in flight when crossing European Air Space.
The Euro-Fighter Jets can give AF1 an ultimatum, reverse course or be shot down.
Downing AF1 and the killing of Obama AND Bush is a Two-Fer.
Good hunting Euro-Fighters ! Kill the Monsters !
You're trying to mix the Ami's military bases in with a govt spy agency thing....sounds like you're just butthurt. Protip: the NSA would share spy info with Germans (and spy if they wanted to with or without German support, but I'm sure that they would have it as German politics are really no more fair than ours, just cleaner) and work WITH them, and I'm sure it would benefit both parties. The bases have nothing to do with that, they're used as staging areas for other things (not to mention a serious influx of cash into the local economy and probably keeping some bad people from feeling like starting shit in Germany for fear of pissing off the local Amis.
You need to calm down kid, and take your meds
Interesting... one nation decides that it can do whatever it likes to any in the world, and when the rest of the world get up-in-arms about it, you start ranting about how arrogant they are?
Because everyone else are the bad guys, the US are the good guys, and only the US because they'd never overthrow nations, or abduct and torture people who disagree with them, not like the rest of the world.