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EU Parliament: Other Countries Spy, But Less Than the UK, US
itwbennett writes "An E.U. Parliament survey of 5 member states found that 4 of the 5 (U.K., France, Germany and Sweden) engage in bulk collection of data. Only the Netherlands doesn't, but that's not because it doesn't want to. In fact, The Netherlands is currently setting up an agency for that purpose. France, which summoned the U.S. ambassador to explain allegations that the NSA spied on Alcatel-Lucent, ranks fifth in the world in metadata collection. And Sweden? Its National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA) is alleged to have been running 'upstreaming' operations (tapping directly into the communications infrastructure as a means to intercept data) for the collection of private data — collecting both the content of messages as well as metadata of communications crossing Swedish borders through fibre-optic cables from the Baltic Sea."
Spying on foreign countries is feasible when there is an immediate threat. In a globalized world where most countries sort of "work together" and their borders become blurry (from an industrial point of view) it does more harm than good. Companies fear industry espionage and pull back or limit interaction with those "excessively spying" countries and that harms global economy which eventually boils down to every single one of us.
The bastions of civilization are threatening my rights to privacy and it seems to be a systemic problem across many nations and interests.
The question I have is, if 'everyone' (almost) is doing it, when do us sheeple get to say 'no' and have it count for something?
I ask this question, and nothing seems to change. I vote for people I see as less persecuting, and the problems get worse. My fellow compatriots get angry, protest and demonstrate, try to keep the issue in the light, and we are largely ignored. Fellows that whistleblow are retaliated against, persecuted, and no positive action taken.
When do we get to remind politicians that they are servants of the people and that the government should act in our interest, not its own?
<metadata>Dear NSA, I'm not having subversive thoughts, so please don't interpret my post that way.</metadata>
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I really couldn't give a fsck what one government does to another government. They all suck.
What I DO care about is my own corrupt, power-mad government spying on me and my fellow citizens as if we are all suspect.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
There's nothing legal about it; it is entirely outside the scope of the law.
What you mean is that it is common practice to keep an eye on your enemies and on your friends since it allows you to prepare for what's coming. And everyone does it from the youngest age, through gossip and eavesdropping.
The problem here is the scale at which it can be practiced nowadays by the most powerful entities. You should always be wary of that kind of concentration of power. The strong often abuse their power.
A state maintains itself by keeping its own citizens under control and keeping at bay outside threats. But in modern times, for economical reasons, the outside threat is quite weak. States have every incentive to cooperate with each other. All the power granted by this collection of information is thus turned towards the only outlet: population control and the erosion of freedom. This is hardly comforting...
Bullshit. Spying on allies is often as important as spying on "immediate threats". I, for one, hope that the US is spying on Israel and that the information gathered has prevented them from pulling us into a war with Iran.
The issue isn't spying but the scope and the escalation. Violating the privacy of millions of citizens for a dragnet is not just spying but a violation of sovereignty. The same applies to escalating the spying up to the phones of heads of state. Effectively, the US just built an espionage nuclear weapon. Now the rest of the world is going to do the same, meaning everybody is fucked. The unwritten lines of common decency that restricted spying based on an actual purpose have been crossed. Now we are in the land of spying on everybody and everything with the goal of just holding the information until it becomes useful. Privacy has just taken a mortal blow.
Yes, a certain amount of spying is expected and allowed. An ambassador is basically a legalized spy who has diplomatic protection and is allowed to work in the open.
The problem is that the NSA is not following the same priorities as the State Department. How many European political leaders will give the American diplomats their private phone number in the future? The NSA's spying on allies is destroying any future back channel communication abilities that we may have. The conspiracy theorist in me would be saying it's intentional so that the NSA becomes the ONLY source for intelligence gathering in the American government.
What the problem is as seen by a number of people including the original submitter of the Patriot Act to Congress, is the wholesale collection by the NSA of all the electronic communications _of its own people_ - to no known good purpose and in direct contravention of law, the Constitution, and what some might even quaintly characterize as morality.
To state it somewhat differently, Optimal Cynic (now there's a fine thought, that handle, and a heavy responsibility to live up to), the problem is not about having an agency tasked with foreign signals intelligence (one of the NSA's founding tasks; there are several more including cryptanalysis of said signals and cryptography in aid of securing our own communications) "spying" on the communications of other governments.
The problem as talked about here and elsewhere since, what, June?, is the total Hoovering of all internal electronic comms, on the off chance that sometime between now and the heat death of the Universe some citizen might have some electronic intercourse with someone from another country and that that communication might somehow possibly have some relevance to some potential investigation of someone else who talks with someone else who is also from another country and that what is talked about might be flagged for inquiry as being somehow inimical to the interests of this country or of its safety or that of its citizens. Or so the ostensible reasoning goes.
The totality of this has been done in secret from the secret court charged with issuing warrants and conducting oversight and from the Congress which set out as part of the Patriot Act a section setting up such court, etc., and which is supposed to be in charge of oversight which includes being fully briefed on what said court and agency are doing vis-a-vis their tasking. This isn't following the comms of a suspect under investigation via warrant and foreign intel as is done in normal fruitful investigations by police agencies, this is the complete sucking up of all electronic comms excepting garage-door openers on everyone inside our borders. Just in passing, the agency has consistently lied about this to the secret court and to Congress. Well, technically, no; the lies changed in light of every new revelation as to what they were doing, so it might be better to say repeatedly than consistently.
D'you begin to get a glimpse or glimmer that the problem is not spying on others, but on us? (I think it might have been Shaw, "The ability to see things as they are is called cynicism by those who haven't got it." May have been Bierce. Or even Wilde; they were all pretty sharp.) Anyway, do you see, optimally or otherwise?
The problem isn't so much that countries engage in spying. That's to be expected, really. The problems are in 1) how they go about doing it, 2) whom they're targeting and 3) what data they're collecting. So if they're 1) using backdoors in consumer products without use of warrants, 2) targeting members of the public without necessarily having good cause to do so and 3) collecting everything they possibly can, then there's a big problem. Spying on other countries or persons of interest with good cause and/or warrants is what these agencies generally do. What the NSA and GCHQ in particular are doing is far more than this and far more invasive for what seems like little meaningful return and at the risk of their reputations and their respective countries' reputations.
I still don't see the problem. Spying on foreign countries has happened since they were invented, it's entirely legal and expecting it not to happen strikes me as hopelessly naive.
Spying on citizens of foreign countries is still a violation of the human rights convention. It's not legal!
Spying on foreign diplomats is a violation of Vienna convention, tapping into foreign government networks is an aggression (act of war, US. govt. said so a while ago) not legal without prior declaration of war (not all declarations of war are legal either).
Sure "legal" is hard to define, but let's just say there's nothing honest, fair or acceptable about spying on your allies!
On topic, I don't see a problem with having some level of surveillance, but it must be transparent!
If you tap cables or whatever, let the public know and make sure access, disclosure and queries are all subjected to public court hearings.
Then it's fair, honest and acceptable, let's call that "legal".
Spying was never legal. This is the main mistake you make in your assertion. Only your own spies had some legal cover in your own country. But in every other country, your spies are criminals.
Wait what? It's no secret that the reason FRA exists is to tap the underwater cables carrying almost all of Russia's traffic and hand it over to the US. There was an uproar against the creation of FRA in Sweden - but it was met with statements from our prime minister to the effect of "It's best for us all if we don't talk about this anymore".
Earlier documents put in context with recent revelations show that Sweden has been systematically wiretapping Russia on behalf of the United States. This is clear after putting a number of previous questionable agreements and developments in context today.
http://falkvinge.net/2013/07/07/documents-sweden-wiretapping-russias-international-traffic-for-the-nsa/
it's in my head
It depends on where the ambassador is. The US ambassador to Denmark, for instance, is basically a plum political appointment for a major supporter who likes the idea of living in Denmark, knows how to speak Danish, and has some friends or family in Copenhagen already. But the US ambassador to Russia is a senior career member of the US Foreign Service, because they want someone in Moscow who is less likely to screw things up than the political payback guy would.
So, for example, the current US ambassador to Germany is John Emerson, who has no foreign policy experience before his appointment and got his appointment by helping Bill Clinton and Barack Obama's campaign in California. By contrast, J Christopher Stevens, the ambassador to Libya killed in the Benghazi attack, had about 20 years of diplomatic service in the Middle East, serving in Israel, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and several Middle East-related posts back in Washington DC.
I am officially gone from