NSA Intercepted French Telephone Calls "On a Massive Scale"
rtoz writes "The US National Security Agency (NSA) has been intercepting French telephone calls 'on a massive scale,' according to a report published in Le Monde. According to Le Monde, the NSA recorded millions of telephone calls placed by French citizens over a 30-day period last year, including some placed by people with no connections to terrorist organizations. France called in the U.S. ambassador to protest the alleged large-scale spying on French citizens by NSA."
for many conservative, trading, countries usa is the extreme and has been for several decades - dictating who we can trade and with what tech(in the past limiting our trade with russia/ussr, for example, because our tech was too good for them).
if we're overrun by extremists then that probably would be the extremists that don't want aid(or rules) who would be in charge. heck, we'd probably go as refugees to another european country since going as refugees to usa doesn't seem to be working for anyone lately.
but it doesn't really work to be doing trade with someone who is cheating all the fucking time and breaking all the fucking rules all the fucking time with the defense that "it's ok since you're not our citizens". something has to give - most logical thing to go is the assumption that we would investigate hacking originating from our nations if usa asks since you're giving free cards to your operatives to break our communications laws.
because that's less extreme than kidnapping those operatives by force and we're not that extreme even if usa is when it doesn't bother with pesky extradition requests. those operatives are endangering OUR national security so according to the ground rules of engagement put into place by USA it would be well within our rights to go and snipe those guys and then say in the UN "well it was legal! we have a paper that we wrote that says it was legal!"
I mean how much more extreme could you get? smuggling kidnapped non-pow non-prisoner-status prisoners through our airports? ordering collateral damage ok killings on people based on hearsay, in areas technically not in war, without warning? using agreedly torturing techniques to interrogate people you have no idea if they know anything? spying on your allies, enemies and own people on massive scale? smuggling drugs to finance a conflict? selling guns to known gun-runners? how much more extreme can you really get without an open civil war?
Add isolationist to the list too since compared to the size it's fucking hard to legally move in to pay taxes(compared to just about any other picky country like Norway, Russia or even China).
So yeah probably the last country to go ask for help. last time we did you sent us shitty airplanes and then became allies with the guys who attacked us - making even fucking bona fide original nazis a better companion in the situation!
and marshall aid? not a cent for us! we paid reparations!
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.