Americans are largely split on the issue of whether they support the spy program, except for Democrats who simply can't bring themselves to criticize their Blessed Leader in any way.
Several US civil liberties organizations have already filed suit against the program. Anything like that happening in Europe? Didn't think so.
I don't know of any case of corporate espionage in which US government agencies were involved. If you do, please provide some examples.
In contrast, France and other European governments have clearly engaged in corporate espionage against US companies and shared that information with their private sectors (search the news).
The E.U., being a collection of countries that have historically spied on each other to very large extents and are now friendly, frowns on that sort of thing.
That's why the British are tapping all EU communications coming through their country, and the French have just been revealed to do the same? And the reason we haven't heard about the Germans doing the same is because German government employees are good little obedient Germans who wouldn't dream of leaking anything, and because the German press generally trivializes such things.
The point is that the European view expressed by the GGP that Americans don't know history and are a "young country" is nonsense.
Europeans themselves have very selective memories when it comes to history, and much of what they consider "their long history" has little to do with today's culture. On the other hand, in my experience, most Europeans know little specifics of 19th and 20th century European history.
And to Germans, the Nazi regime is "ancient history" too, while a handful of 18th and 19th century writers and composers supposedly demonstrate the enormous superiority of German culture.
People's historical memory is rather selective and nonlinear.
I don't get what you're trying to say. That the consequences of reintroducing visas (like we have had for decades) would be so horrible that the US wouldn't dare do it? Europe is welcome to test that assumption.
I find odd how so many people seem to be able to conceive of progress as something that can only be achieved by big public spending. In reality, the CIA and NSA are mainly just a drain on the budget, and innovation needs to come from the private sector and universities.
look man, that data isn't supposed to be abused. and we have no visa entry or visa on arrival treaties with dozens of countries that we don't share information with.
True, but if you want to come to the US, you play by US rules.
not to mention that the banking data has pretty much nothing to do with it except again just goodwill and USA is not giving their data back - and I don't think it would be in american interests to make it mutually cumbersome to get a travel permit because we could do it as well
As you noted, Europe hasn't retaliated against ESTA, and Europe doesn't require the kind of information the US requires. Obviously, Europe doesn't simply engage in tit-for-tat over travel requirements.
we already need either a visa or the electronic equivalent of it. so nothing lost, really. if I have to pay for a visa or electronic authorization.. what difference does it make for me?
Which part of "the effect would be virtually nil" did you not understand?
n 1967 the Supreme Court ruled that mail covers are not private information.
Did I say anywhere that it is illegal? No. I said that it should be illegal. Do you understand the difference between "is" and "should be"?
No need to retain data a few weeks beyond delivery? What if a month later I decide to go back and sue the USPS for a damaged or lost package?
They don't need that; lost packages are your problem, or the insurance company's problem.
If they don't know what packages are being sent form or going where, how do they decide which post offices to close and which to open? If they don't know at what times different packages are being sent, how do they know when to staff up or what to staff down?
They don't need personally identifiable information, just statistics.
Every business you interact with is keeping this sort of information to just maintain their basic competence. Again, making the USPS operate with both arms tied behind it's back will just make it more incompetent and more bloated.
Which part of "And those principles should apply equally to public and private delivery services." did you not understand?
The US wouldn't block flights, it would simply go back to the old system of requiring visas for Europeans. You'd still have to give up the data if you want to travel to the US, just like you used to. The effect would be virtually nil.
It's amazing how treating your friends like enemies can change opinions.
No opinions have changed; European intellectuals have always hated the US.
THATS the real issue for Europeans people... WTF don't our politicians CARE about this? That scares me more then the whole snooping.
They don't really care because they are doing the same kind of spying themselves.
They also don't care because their voters want economic growth and low inflation, and they know the only way of getting that is by cooperating with the US.
Europe can't take the high ground here. Europeans effectively continued slavery in their colonies until the mid-20th century. And the abandonment of slavery and feudalism in Europe wasn't due to some enlightened social views, it was due to the fact that mechanization had made it unprofitable.
for most european countries citizens it wouldn't be even legal to be spying on other countries(to do espionage abroad). for NSA faculty it's legal.
Nonsense. Most European nations have spy agencies that are entitled and empowered by their respective laws to spy on other nations and commit crimes in other nations, including the US.
if you can't be bothered to put on any legal rules on access to the data even then why the fuck should we be providing you with all our data which could be used among other things to manipulate stock markets? why?
Because Europeans like to travel to the US without the bother of having to get visas, both for business and for pleasure. Terminating data sharing would hurt European interests much more than American interests.
After WWII, Germans of course had no expectation of privacy relative to US and UK intelligence services because those intelligence services were concerned with finding enemies of democracy and war criminals. That arrangement also turned out to be useful for both the US and Germany during the Cold War. Germany has never demanded that that arrangement end. It's weird that Germans are surprised by this or think that this is a "problem". If Germany doesn't want US espionage on its soil, fine, the first step would be for it to ask for that to happen.
As for "blaming the messenger", blame for what? Do you think Americans care much whether Europeans have visa-less travel to the US? Given the trade deficit, do you think Americans care much about free trade with the EU? Economically, these measures may be slightly beneficial to Americans, but politically, they play badly. If the EU doesn't want these deals, it's easy for US politicians to walk away from them.
All of that may be true. But it also runs counter to the basic principles this nation was founded on: freedom of speech, freedom from government intrusion, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, and religious freedom.
And remember, the way things are going, it is those "politically-correct postmodernist identity politics hacks" that would be doing the profiling, and you'd end up having problems traveling.
The thing to do about terrorism and assassinations is... nothing. It's not a significant cause of death. There just aren't that many terrorists. And even if every assassination attempt succeeded, politician would still be a safe and cushy job compared with mining, logging, or garbage collection.
That's a solution if you don't mind being treated like sh*t (or denied the ability to travel altogether) unless you match a government-approved religious and political profile. That kind of blatant and unpleasant discrimination is why I don't travel to Israel anymore. Unfortunately, if you're an Israeli, your only choice is to emigrate.
Slashdot Mirror
2/3 of Americans want a congressional investigation, and a slight majority oppose having Snowden charged.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/06/19/poll-public-wants-congressional-hearings-on-nsa-surveillance/
Americans are largely split on the issue of whether they support the spy program, except for Democrats who simply can't bring themselves to criticize their Blessed Leader in any way.
Several US civil liberties organizations have already filed suit against the program. Anything like that happening in Europe? Didn't think so.
As I was saying: Europeans should complain about and to their own governments, because that's where the source of the problem is.
I don't know of any case of corporate espionage in which US government agencies were involved. If you do, please provide some examples.
In contrast, France and other European governments have clearly engaged in corporate espionage against US companies and shared that information with their private sectors (search the news).
That's why the British are tapping all EU communications coming through their country, and the French have just been revealed to do the same? And the reason we haven't heard about the Germans doing the same is because German government employees are good little obedient Germans who wouldn't dream of leaking anything, and because the German press generally trivializes such things.
The "EU people" are doing the same thing the "US people" are doing: they are both outraged at the NSA.
However, who the "EU people" should be outraged at is their own governments that keep spying on them and don't protect them from the NSA.
The point is that the European view expressed by the GGP that Americans don't know history and are a "young country" is nonsense.
Europeans themselves have very selective memories when it comes to history, and much of what they consider "their long history" has little to do with today's culture. On the other hand, in my experience, most Europeans know little specifics of 19th and 20th century European history.
I have no idea what your comment has to do with mine.
I'm sorry, I'm confused. Is that supposed to be a bad thing?
It "won't benefit most apps" in the sense that they don't run faster.
It benefits every app in the sense that you don't have to write them in Java, and using Android's weird APIs.
True perhaps, but it still beats senility and impotence, which seem to be the prevalent drivers of European politics.
And to Germans, the Nazi regime is "ancient history" too, while a handful of 18th and 19th century writers and composers supposedly demonstrate the enormous superiority of German culture.
People's historical memory is rather selective and nonlinear.
I don't get what you're trying to say. That the consequences of reintroducing visas (like we have had for decades) would be so horrible that the US wouldn't dare do it? Europe is welcome to test that assumption.
I find odd how so many people seem to be able to conceive of progress as something that can only be achieved by big public spending. In reality, the CIA and NSA are mainly just a drain on the budget, and innovation needs to come from the private sector and universities.
True, but if you want to come to the US, you play by US rules.
As you noted, Europe hasn't retaliated against ESTA, and Europe doesn't require the kind of information the US requires. Obviously, Europe doesn't simply engage in tit-for-tat over travel requirements.
Which part of "the effect would be virtually nil" did you not understand?
Did I say anywhere that it is illegal? No. I said that it should be illegal. Do you understand the difference between "is" and "should be"?
They don't need that; lost packages are your problem, or the insurance company's problem.
They don't need personally identifiable information, just statistics.
Which part of "And those principles should apply equally to public and private delivery services." did you not understand?
We do, but we expect European nations to be bureaucratic, intrusive, and cumbersome anyway, so having to get a visa doesn't really matter much to us.
I doubt it because that would mostly hurt the European tourism industry. But Americans wouldn't really care anyway.
The US wouldn't block flights, it would simply go back to the old system of requiring visas for Europeans. You'd still have to give up the data if you want to travel to the US, just like you used to. The effect would be virtually nil.
No opinions have changed; European intellectuals have always hated the US.
They don't really care because they are doing the same kind of spying themselves.
They also don't care because their voters want economic growth and low inflation, and they know the only way of getting that is by cooperating with the US.
Europe can't take the high ground here. Europeans effectively continued slavery in their colonies until the mid-20th century. And the abandonment of slavery and feudalism in Europe wasn't due to some enlightened social views, it was due to the fact that mechanization had made it unprofitable.
Nonsense. Most European nations have spy agencies that are entitled and empowered by their respective laws to spy on other nations and commit crimes in other nations, including the US.
Because Europeans like to travel to the US without the bother of having to get visas, both for business and for pleasure. Terminating data sharing would hurt European interests much more than American interests.
After WWII, Germans of course had no expectation of privacy relative to US and UK intelligence services because those intelligence services were concerned with finding enemies of democracy and war criminals. That arrangement also turned out to be useful for both the US and Germany during the Cold War. Germany has never demanded that that arrangement end. It's weird that Germans are surprised by this or think that this is a "problem". If Germany doesn't want US espionage on its soil, fine, the first step would be for it to ask for that to happen.
As for "blaming the messenger", blame for what? Do you think Americans care much whether Europeans have visa-less travel to the US? Given the trade deficit, do you think Americans care much about free trade with the EU? Economically, these measures may be slightly beneficial to Americans, but politically, they play badly. If the EU doesn't want these deals, it's easy for US politicians to walk away from them.
All of that may be true. But it also runs counter to the basic principles this nation was founded on: freedom of speech, freedom from government intrusion, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, and religious freedom.
And remember, the way things are going, it is those "politically-correct postmodernist identity politics hacks" that would be doing the profiling, and you'd end up having problems traveling.
The thing to do about terrorism and assassinations is ... nothing. It's not a significant cause of death. There just aren't that many terrorists. And even if every assassination attempt succeeded, politician would still be a safe and cushy job compared with mining, logging, or garbage collection.
That's a solution if you don't mind being treated like sh*t (or denied the ability to travel altogether) unless you match a government-approved religious and political profile. That kind of blatant and unpleasant discrimination is why I don't travel to Israel anymore. Unfortunately, if you're an Israeli, your only choice is to emigrate.