| "Is attacking their allies inside their territories, breaking, entering, installing viruses and malware against the personal home computers of civilians in allied countries" Yes as far as I know. It's also done by intelligence services in European countries especially France, Germany, and Italy. If they're doing it, so should we given the consequences of us being only ones without critical info or influence at negotiation table or in market. I'm for ending all of that crap between allies but it's unlikely to happen. If we stop, the Europeans won't as it's our I.P. they mostly steal. ;) "Which is what they did to the completely innocent civilian sysadmins of a large Belgian telecom." I mention elsewhere that this kind of reckless damage to allies is worth whistleblowing on. It's collecting actionable intelligence that benefits U.S. that's supposed to be their job. Also, it was GHCQ (Britain) that did that with U.S. providing the access. Blame should be partial. " I mean we all know how the rest of the world feels about it." Irrelevant. More relevant is (a) that many countries griping are actively involved in spying or abuse their own citizens; (b) what the hell are they going to do about it for all spying jurisdictions rather than just what U.S. is doing? U.S. is a superpower, as are spy-happy Russia and China. The other spy-happy countries are major, economic powers. Are all the countries of the world just going to boycott every product from every country with an intelligence service? Good luck if you try but I predict the hypocrites won't even try. Many are unjustly doing it to the U.S. but not other spying nations despite knowing same stuff is going on there. Mere politics. Note: Nonetheless, I still recommend avoiding any strongly-spying jursidiction when creating a business where privacy matters. That list always getting smaller as only 3 countries weren't cooperating with NSA in Europe per one leak. Iceland, Switzerland, and forgot other one. "So please, could you repeat that, to my face?" All of your data that you send unencrypted over a public or semi-private line is up for grabs by anyone in between you and the recipient. That's correct. If you thought otherwise, you may be visiting us from an alternate universe where criminal hacking, war and espionage didn't exist. "A non-US person is a second class person, even if they're allies."
""You believe it is right for you to know whether your government is doing illegal things or overstepping boundaries in surveillance."" You are in fact a second-class person... per U.S. law... if you are a non-U.S. citizen that's not bound by U.S. law with no responsibilities to or presence in America. Just as your country, many of them actually, might treat me. Personally, I think our intelligence services shouldn't target you in any way unless they had evidence you were a threat to national security or our foreign policy. Yet, these laws were devised in period from WW2 to Cold War where all kinds of citizens in all kinds of countries, enemies and their trade partners, were worth targeting. Probably corruption on top of that. That's why they're so broad. Quick question: Do Americans visiting the Netherlands have all the rights and protections of citizens of the Netherlands? I'm curious in how many countries this is true. Are their restrictions in your defense sector not allowing me to know things that might affect me or requiring source code to come from citizens of your country? Plus, does that country's laws allow their military or any intelligence agency to take action against foreigners that it can't take against locals? Also, what's the status of the Trusted Third Parties project I read on a while back that seemed like mandated backdoors for law enforcement? Sounds like a public version of some Snowden slides and recent FBI vs Apple case. I hope it never passed or was pretty limited. "to know that my government is doing the very same, a lot of it in service of the US government. " Smart you mentioned it as I was going to burn your for that. That your country is one of 9-Eyes goes back a bit and the arrangements get reported on periodically with no, real resistance. Wouldn't surprise me if their stuff was connected to STONEGHOST on top of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes "Better keep a lid on it because it only screws over those second-rate, non-US people? " It only keeps an eye on them, their governments, and their businesses to ensure they're not breaking rules that keep global economy going or doing anything directly threatening. That's what they're supposed to be doing. I'm fine with that as I know us pro-human rights people will get outvoted without a compromise given all the nations, including yours, doing spying. Yet, I don't see how you're getting screwed over if a NSA system temporarily has your info or an analyst looks at it to determine if you're a terrorist or bribing foreign governments. Your life would've gone on without any effect if Snowden didn't leak. So, it's a privacy violation but not "screwing" your life over in any way. Such strawmen are great for political posturing but are as honest as Keith Alexander testifying pre-Snowden. Stick with the truth and less drama if you want to have an effect. Plus, Americans who might have backed you will just laugh when you tell them how the NSA destroyed your life because... surveillance existed but they did nothing further. They might think Europeans in general are that foolish & dismiss further claims. |