Court Allowed NSA To Spy On All But 4 Countries

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Court Allowed NSA To Spy On All But 4 Countries

Posted by timothy on Tuesday July 1, 2014 @12:45AM from the under-color-of-official-right dept.

mrspoonsi (2955715) writes A court permitted the NSA to collect information about governments in 193 countries and foreign institutions like the World Bank, according to a secret document the Washington Post published Monday. The certification issued by a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in 2010 shows the NSA has the authority to "intercept through U.S. companies not just the communications of its overseas targets, but any communications about its targets as well," according to the Post's report. Only four countries in the world — Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — were exempt from the agreement, due to existing no-spying agreements that the Post highlights in this document about the group of countries, known as "Five Eyes" with the U.S.

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Uh... Yeah? by CajunArson · 2014-07-01 00:46 · Score: 5, Insightful

Sorry, but I'm not going to get my panties in a bind that the NSA is spying on other countries' governments considering:
1. That's the NSA's freakin' job.
2. Anybody who thinks that the only country in the world that spies is the U.S. is either an idiot or a liar.

--
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
1. Re:Uh... Yeah? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-01 01:00 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  1. That's the NSA's freakin' job.
  I'm just doing my job! That makes it okay!
  Not everyone believes that we should be spying on allies and non-hostile countries.
  
  2. Anybody who thinks that the only country in the world that spies is the U.S. is either an idiot or a liar.
  Anyone who thinks that "Everybody else is doing it!" is a valid justification is an idiot or a liar. By the way, that's very likely a straw man, as I've seen no one actually claim no other country is doing it. The thing is... get ready for it... no one cares! It's irrelevant!
2. Re:Uh... Yeah? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-01 01:02 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Sure most countries spy... But not anywhere near the level NSA does it at... I have never heard of other countries that put bugs in UN offices of other countries etc...
  Known incidents of countries spying on the UN:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
  Also, using diplomats for regular spying is just evil...
3. Re:Uh... Yeah? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-01 01:11 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Full disclosure: I am not a US citizen and live in the UK.
  I think everybody understands that it's the NSA's job, like any intelligence agency's, to spy for certain purposes. Problem is what one accepts as "certain purposes." If the NSA does spying necessary to, let's say, avoid terrorist attacks, fight organised crime, ensure US military secrets, etc., hardly anybody would complain I guess. But the NSA is spying indiscriminately on virtually anybody (unless you're covered by the Five-Eyes-No-Spy-Agreement)! So, high-tech corporations in let's say Japan or private citizens in let's say France might ask themselves, why is the NSA spying on them? I think you will find that very few countries in the world go to that extreme. And the few that might (let's say Russia or China) are generally not considered the "good guys".
4. Re:Uh... Yeah? by jeIlomizer · 2014-07-01 01:16 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  Um...WHAT?
  Yeah, I know. That sentence blew my mind! How can something you do for your job not be okay!? It's impossible!
  
  --
  If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
5. Re:Uh... Yeah? by thaylin · 2014-07-01 01:19 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  It is Russia's spy agency's job to spy on us, that does not make it ok for them to do, as I am sure you would not be happy about it spying on you if you found out it actually did.
  
  --
  When you cant win, ad hominem.
6. Re:Uh... Yeah? by YrWrstNtmr · 2014-07-01 01:22 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I have never heard of other countries that put bugs in UN offices of other countries etc
  
  HAHAHA.
7. Re:Uh... Yeah? by Sockatume · 2014-07-01 01:25 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Forcing Microsoft, Google, et al to spy for the NSA, using secret orders from a secret court, seems rather more problematic.
  
  --
  No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
8. Re:Uh... Yeah? by ZouPrime · 2014-07-01 01:27 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  > Just because its their job doesn't mean its okay.
  Just because it's the job of the military to kill people doesn't mean it's okay.
  It's not, but every single country in the world still has a military, and won't disband it just because "killing is wrong".
  Countries have interests. They have a foreign policy aimed at defending these interest.
  War is diplomacy by any other means, and countries will use wars as a tool of their foreign policy.
  Spying is also diplomacy by other means, and countries will use spies as a tool of their foreign policy, which has the nice benefit of not killing people and not destroying everything, like wars do.
  That it is "wrong" in some isolated, ideologically pure version of reality has little impact in practice. Countries continue to spy (since before they were such things as "countries"), and will continue for a long time.
9. Re:Uh... Yeah? by erikkemperman · 2014-07-01 01:30 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Your panties aside, the whole problem here is that NSA is using "national security" as reason for a whole bunch of other things. Like economic, diplomatic and industrial espionage. Which is definitely not the NSA's job, no matter how liberally we interpret their mandate. Expand the acronym, there's a bit of a hint in there.
  Explain to me why spying on, say, Angela Merkel or the entire Copenhagen or G20 summits is related to US national security and maybe I'll see your point.
  You are probably correct that other countries do similar things (China and Russia come to mind) but you seem to be clueless to the difference in scale.
  Finally, your sig: you disbelieve AGW arguments because you think Al Gore is a hypocrite? You're right about that last bit, but the conclusion, to put it mildly, does not follow.
  
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10. Re:Uh... Yeah? by Charliemopps · 2014-07-01 01:37 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Sorry, but I'm not going to get my panties in a bind that the NSA is spying on other countries' governments considering:
  1. That's the NSA's freakin' job.
  2. Anybody who thinks that the only country in the world that spies is the U.S. is either an idiot or a liar.
  I'm sick of this inane, uninformed argument.
  1. It shouldn't be. That's why we're having this debate. It would be one thing if our government found evidence of something shifty going on... spied to confirm or refute that, and then took action. That's not what they are doing though. They're bugging every world leader, tapping the phones of damned near every citizen, reading our mail... this is Orwellian blanket surveillance which is a far cry from "Spying" This isn't "Spying" it's totalitarianism and it's wrong.
  2. Comparing what the rest of the world does to what the NSA does is a joke. Yes, they spy on us, but they're not intercepting ALL of our phone calls. How many countries do you think have the US presidents phone tapped? I bet it's just one... take a guess who I think that is.
  But lets assume for a second that the rest of the world had the NSA's capability and disregard for human dignity and privacy... I could go on and on about the moral implications and what not but the fact of the matter is this argument was resolved thousands of years ago with the simple line: "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind" It's not a hard concept to grasp. WE are better than that. We don't need to do this. It's wrong, we all know it. It should stop immediately.
11. Re:Uh... Yeah? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-07-01 01:38 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Is it also the NSA's job to destroy the American tech industry? Because that's how you destroy the American tech industry.
  It all depends on how they do it. They can sit in an embassy, pointing an hypersensitive antenna at "electronic targets", they can dig up cables in foregin countries at night, they can plant their own bugs. No ill effect on american tech industry from this. Quite the opposite, the NSA will need a "tech industry" to purchase bugs and other listening equipment from. If foreigners discover such a bug, they will either have counterintelligence feed it bogus data, or expose it and deliver some sort of official protest. Still no bad effect on american tech industry, unless the "official protest" takes the form of a boycott.
  But put just one backdoor into american equipment during export, and your reputation is ruined for a long time. Those that care about such things, will take the covers off and use disassemblers these days. Or simply order from other countries. Sure, the chinese can put backdoors into huawei products - in theory. But are they doing it at the moment? The paranoid can check no matter who the vendor is. The rest will either go by reputation, as in "who has not yet been caught delivering bugged products", or ask questions like "which producing country is least likely to spy on us.
  Tip: stay away from countries big enough to have aircraft carriers. The rest can't project power all over the world, and will neither have the budgets for - or the interest in - a large-scale spying operation.
12. Re:Uh... Yeah? by spacepimp · 2014-07-01 01:45 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  We are spying on civilians irrespective of who they are, what they think and how they act. Indiscriminate spying on the citizens of another nation is not the sort of thing the US should be engaged in. It will only piss them off and turn them to hate us along with losing the favor of the rest of the national leaders of the world. We have become complete and utter assholes of a nation and people like you saying it is fine have no idea how rude and arrogant you are to the people of the world who have done nothing wrong.
13. Re:Uh... Yeah? by snarfies · 2014-07-01 02:02 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  A government spying on another government = okay
  A government spying on another country's people = not okay
  A government spying on its own people = OMGWTFBBQ
14. Re:Uh... Yeah? by kilfarsnar · 2014-07-01 02:10 · Score: 2
  
  ...every single country in the world still has a military, and won't disband it just because "killing is wrong".
  Countries have interests. They have a foreign policy aimed at defending these interest.
  I hope we can all keep this in mind the next time our leaders tell us we are going to war to free an oppressed people or to stop some evil dictator form doing stuff evil dictators do. Foreign policy isn't about that. Ever.
  
  --
  "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
15. Re:Uh... Yeah? by NatasRevol · 2014-07-01 02:11 · Score: 2
  
  Why is the USA not on the 'can't spy on' list?
  
  --
  There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
16. Re:Uh... Yeah? by NatasRevol · 2014-07-01 02:12 · Score: 2
  
  OMGWTFBBQ when the government is supposed to abide by the laws that do not allow unreasonable search.
  But don't.
  
  --
  There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
17. Re:Uh... Yeah? by silentcoder · 2014-07-01 02:18 · Score: 2
  
  Didn't you DO that already ?
  Or have you forgotten Abu Ghraib already...
  
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18. Re:Uh... Yeah? by kilfarsnar · 2014-07-01 02:24 · Score: 2
  
  Your panties aside, the whole problem here is that NSA is using "national security" as reason for a whole bunch of other things.
  Unfortunately, it's been that way since the State Secrets doctrine was created.
  
  --
  "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
19. Re:Uh... Yeah? by kilfarsnar · 2014-07-01 02:27 · Score: 2
  
  I could go on and on about the moral implications and what not but the fact of the matter is this argument was resolved thousands of years ago with the simple line: "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind" It's not a hard concept to grasp. WE are better than that. We don't need to do this. It's wrong, we all know it. It should stop immediately.
  Wouldn't it be nice if our leaders considered what kind of world they're contributing to rather than just what they need to do to advance their "interests"?
  
  --
  "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
20. Re:Uh... Yeah? by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · 2014-07-01 02:30 · Score: 2
  
  That's absolutely right. In a very real way, our collective spy networks both US/Nato and Soviet/Warsaw allowed us to see what the other was doing and have some confidence about their immediate intentions. Spying kept the cold war from being a hot war.
  In a perfect world would spying exist? No.
  Should spying continue to exist in this un-perfect world? Absolutely.
  Should there be restrictions to spying? Absolutely.
  Like much in this world, the right answer is not an absolute answer. The world lives in complicated shades of grey.
  
  --
  Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
21. Re:Uh... Yeah? by ZouPrime · 2014-07-01 02:47 · Score: 2
  
  > The NSA is an enormous liability with horrible internal security.
  The US should remove its electronic spying capabilities because they are internally insecure? I'm not sure to follow you here. It doesn't make any sense, and looks more like a half-assessed excuse to support your conclusion (The NSA should be destroyed no matter what) than anything else.
  > It yields virtually nothing useful to the general citizens,
  I think the general citizen benefits from the US global hegemony of the last 50 years. I'm sure they don't "feel" like it, but that's the problem of living in a rich country and feeling entitled about it. You end up forgetting the true source of the success to rely so much on.
  > and it's actions have jeopardized secure encryption globally
  Oh yeah, no exaggeration here!
  Well, what can I say? You have the username of your ideas.
22. Re:Uh... Yeah? by king+neckbeard · 2014-07-01 02:52 · Score: 2
  
  Your argument is that Big Brother isn't a bother if you don't go against it. That's not much of a consolation. They can and will use those same techniques against political opponents, and with enough dirt on everybody and a legal system in which everyone regularly commits serious crimes in their daily life, political opponents can be silenced.
  
  SO... as they use data mining to shrink the "drag-net", we may all have more freedom.
  
  Yes, WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
  
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23. Re:Uh... Yeah? by king+neckbeard · 2014-07-01 03:10 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  The US should remove its electronic spying capabilities because they are internally insecure? I'm not sure to follow you here. It doesn't make any sense, and looks more like a half-assessed excuse to support your conclusion (The NSA should be destroyed no matter what) than anything else.
  We spy on absolutely everything. Three are, without a doubt, agents acting on behalf of Russia, China, Al-Quaeda, and most crime syndicates withing the organization with access to at least as much as Snowden was able to get. That is a far bigger threat than any of these parties possess on their own.
  
  I think the general citizen benefits from the US global hegemony of the last 50 years. I'm sure they don't "feel" like it, but that's the problem of living in a rich country and feeling entitled about it. You end up forgetting the true source of the success to rely so much on.
  Our spy agencies have created the majority of the threats we face today. If we could stop enforcing the whims of the cronies at any cost, the general public would probably be in a better economic state without so much state backed corporate espionage and politically motivated coups. Perhaps we'd be less dominant, but I strongly prefer simply having a higher standard of living and being safer over being AMERICA NUMBER 1!
  
  Oh yeah, no exaggeration here!
  There isn't. We know of at least one attempt to undermine security standards, and that they have allowed US systems to remain unpatched for vulnerabilities in order to use against unnamed adversaries.
  
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24. Re:Uh... Yeah? by Megol · 2014-07-01 03:49 · Score: 2
  
  Ever heard of water boarding? Continuously playing music at high volumes? Continuously having strong light and/or switching the light on/off on random intervals? Locking people in small completely dark environments? Waking people as soon as they fall asleep? Mentally abusing people including forcing them to do things against their morals and/or religion? And a lot more...
  Which country doesn't consider such things torture?
25. Re:Uh... Yeah? by currently_awake · 2014-07-01 03:50 · Score: 2
  
  It is in our best interest for Russia to spy on the USA. That way they know that the US isn't planning to invade them, they know the US isn't bluffing on their threats, and they know what will happen if they invade the Ukraine. Wars happen because those in charge don't know what is happening (not spying).
26. Re:Uh... Yeah? by Charliemopps · 2014-07-01 03:54 · Score: 2
  
  I'm curious. How, exactly, are we supposed to "find evidence of something shifty going on" without, well, SPYING on people??
  That is irrelevant.
  argumentum ad consequentiam
  It's the same as asking: How are the police supposed to get "probable cause" for a warrant if they don't search your car first?!?
27. Re:Uh... Yeah? by king+neckbeard · 2014-07-01 04:00 · Score: 2
  
  I seem to remember the spies in the CIA almost ending the world because of incompetent meddling in Cuba. It's a pretty tall order to claim that spies have lowered the body count, especially since they tend to be run by warmongers.
  
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28. Re:Uh... Yeah? by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · 2014-07-01 04:52 · Score: 2
  
  I would even be willing to give up the BBQ portion if everyone's reaction to being spied upon by their own government was OMGWTF, but instead we get a bunch of if "you have nothing to hide" bullshit.
  
  --
  Time to offend someone
29. Re:Uh... Yeah? by Idbar · 2014-07-01 04:55 · Score: 2
  
  Argh.. I need to use preview to check if my links are going to disappear: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
30. Re:Uh... Yeah? by AmiMoJo · 2014-07-01 04:56 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  The other big problem is that the NSA is destroying US company's credibility. No-one wants to buy Cisco networking gear because the NSA systematically infects their products with malware and even physically modifies them before they leave the country. No-one wants to store their data in Microsoft's cloud because the NSA has their grubby little fingers all over it. The entire US infosec industry is basically a joke now.
  Would you even want to buy or fly on a Dreamliner now? Maybe that sounds paranoid, but if the Snowden revelations have taught us anything it's that we were not paranoid enough and there are almost no limits to what the US considers acceptable.
  
  --
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31. Re:Uh... Yeah? by Bob+the+Super+Hamste · 2014-07-01 04:58 · Score: 2
  
  Ever heard of water boarding? Continuously playing music at high volumes? Continuously having strong light and/or switching the light on/off on random intervals? Locking people in small completely dark environments? Waking people as soon as they fall asleep? Mentally abusing people including forcing them to do things against their morals and/or religion? And a lot more...
  Are you sure you're not talking about a a pretty fucking awesome rave?
  
  Now that I have that out of the way I just assume that my government is just as bad as most when it comes to shady dealings but is just better at hiding it or convincing its citizens that it is needed (see Palin's baptism comment). I wish it were better and I try to make it better but too many of my fellow citizens think these things are perfectly A-OK.
  
  --
  Time to offend someone
32. Re:Uh... Yeah? by king+neckbeard · 2014-07-01 05:41 · Score: 2
  
  That old defense. Only those in the know the real truth, and we just need to trust them. If that's the case, they should provide some evidence of that fact. Otherwise, I'm going to assume that spying hasn't changed in the last few decades, and most of the secrecy for their operations are to hide their gross incompetence.
  
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33. Re:Uh... Yeah? by king+neckbeard · 2014-07-01 06:27 · Score: 2
  
  There are actually plenty of ways to get information outside of spying, and that's where practically all of the useful information comes from. It's called open source intelligence.
  
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34. Re:Uh... Yeah? by king+neckbeard · 2014-07-01 06:28 · Score: 2
  
  PREVENTING such actions would be within the purview of national security, but COMMITTING those actions certainly isn't.
  
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Re:Agreement?? by Errol+backfiring · 2014-07-01 00:55 · Score: 5, Funny

Well, they did not send an X-Do-Not-Spy HTTP header, so they obviously agreed.

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Re:Axis of Evil by Revek · 2014-07-01 00:58 · Score: 2

That's us, the potato of evil.
The only country that matters... by B33rNinj4 · 2014-07-01 01:01 · Score: 4, Funny

The real question is, did they spy on Djibouti?
A national spy agency spying on other countries by danielobvt · 2014-07-01 01:08 · Score: 2

Color me suprised. Not. In all fairness I want all the other countries spy agencies to release a list of countries they spy in (in particular the national intelligence services of China, Russia, France, England, Germany and Israel). I bet you it would be a pretty similiar list.....
1. Re:A national spy agency spying on other countries by Sockatume · 2014-07-01 01:32 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I don't think any of those countries have secret courts that force local businesses to do the spying for them, though. Maybe Russia and China, and probably (to pick one not on your list) Iran.
  Seems like a club the US should join, right?
  
  --
  No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
The cost by Charliemopps · 2014-07-01 01:47 · Score: 3, Insightful

I submitted this as a story a while back but it never got picked up:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/93f6...
Germany dropped a US carrier (Verizon) over the NSA issue.
The worst part about this whole thing is the spying is worthless. The NSA is alienating our allies, driving away customers from US businesses all so the NSA can record the phone calls of little old ladies talking about bridge.
1. Re:The cost by Zocalo · 2014-07-01 01:59 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Worthless is right. It's supposedly to prevent terrorism (at least that's how the proponents of wholesale data capture usually justify it), which would typically be a small cell of individuals looking to strike a handful of small high value targets. Yet despite having access to every single phone call in Iraq plus, no doubt, a whole array of other sources of intelligence the NSA appears to have been caught completely unaware by a major military offensive involving thousands that has effectively overrun about a third of the major towns and cities in the country. Missing the odd needle in the haystack would perhaps be excusable, but they pretty much overlooked the entire hayfield on that one.
  
  Even so, I'm betting they'll use that as an excuse to justify collecting more than just metadata, which is now demonstrably not up to the job, rather than scrapping the whole expensive business and working out what sources of methods might actually give tangible results and using those instead.
  
  --
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2. Re:The cost by GungaDan · 2014-07-01 02:00 · Score: 2
  
  Oh my god! The little old ladies are going to blow up a bridge!
  
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3. Re:The cost by ArcadeMan · 2014-07-01 02:19 · Score: 2
  
  Out of mod points right now, so I'm giving you a virtual Score: +1, Funny.
  
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Re:The Special Relationship by Sockatume · 2014-07-01 02:32 · Score: 2

They're called "five eyes" because they've been sharing intelligence on each other's enemies since after the second world war. It's probably a given that they're also sharing information on each other's citizens.

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No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Good news and bad news by jeffasselin · 2014-07-01 02:46 · Score: 3, Insightful

As a Canadian, the good news is that the NSA doesn't spy on us.
The bad news is that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) spies on us and shares everything with the NSA anyway.

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So it's ok to kill US soldiers? by sjbe · 2014-07-01 04:06 · Score: 2

Killing an enemy who is attacking or invading your country, or poses a clear and present danger to your country's security is OK, IMO.
So it is OK for Iraqi members of terrorist groups to kill US soldiers because we invaded Iraq? Just want to be sure you aren't being a hypocrite here.
Japan does have a military. by sjbe · 2014-07-01 04:15 · Score: 2

Japan doesn't. (They do have a self-defense force, though.)
Japan does have a military and a rather capable one at that. They just pretend that they can't/won't attack anyone due to the constitution they put in place after WWII.
There are a few insignificant countries that don't have armed forces but every country with a substantial population has one.
Re:But not the USA? by bill_mcgonigle · 2014-07-01 04:16 · Score: 3, Informative

So I noticed they didn't say the USA was one of the countries the NSA can't spy on, so I guess nothing is changing?
Sorry to drag out the UID, but this all goes back to the Echelon stories we were discussing here in the 90's. The same group of countries has agreements to spy on each others' citizens for the sake of circumventing their local laws. One presumes this is why GCHQ figures so prominently in the Snowden revelations.
Even that the NSA is not legally allowed to spy on US citizens does not matter, nor do any of the current Congressional posturings about stopping them from doing so.
We're back to the beginning again, but this time the enemies of liberty are two orders of magnitude more well-equipped. The slope is not a good one.

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Re:Agreement?? by JasterBobaMereel · 2014-07-01 04:31 · Score: 5, Insightful

The USA, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are all members of ECHELON and so already share mutual intercepted data, i.e. the NSA does not need to spy on these ....

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