[walrus01]

The US doesn't operate a great firewall. I don't dispute the capabilities that the NSA, CSE, GCHQ/five eyes partners have, or presently operate, but what matters to me is the results in human rights abuses, freedom of the press and freedom of speech abuses, arbitrary detention, and censorship of the Internet that results from it.

If I had to make the purely pragmatic lesser of two evils choice between the US domestic telecom system as it's run right now (day job is senior network engineer for an ISP), and how telecom is done in China, I'll take the US/NATO approach any day of the week. I don't have time to go into great detail without violating a whole boatload of NDAs and other restrictions, but to use a crude metaphor, suffice to say that I've seen how the sausage is made.

Also if I may point out, a low effort comment engaging in nothing but "whataboutism" is barely a step above flamebait.

[xwolfi]

Well there's no whataboutism when the US block us (Im in HK) from a peering connection because they re scared we ll betray their precious secrets to our chinese overlord while frankly, when we took Snowden, they didn't make it easy either. And that was way more important for national security and freedom to protect americans against the NSA outreach. I mean, it's annoying that when we point the absurd contradiction of the US claims, we get turned down to whataboutism.

For Americans, freedom and security only matter when it apply to their own economical interests (rarely their oppressed citizens), which is fine, but you cant claim you d prefer NATO to the China model: they are both exactly the same from the point of view of someone a external...

Whether you're american or chinese doing the right thing when the State does the wrong thing, lands you in jail after monitoring turned you to secret services. The diff may be the US State does less wrong things, and that jail in the US is a bit better, but you know... you still cant do the right thing when needed so a cable or not with Hong Kong, what exactly are they trying to protect...

[walrus01]

A submarine cable is much more than just a peering connection.

[dillondoyle]

The US and PRC are not exactly the same in terms of where freedom and security matter.

Maybe i'm not understanding what you wrote, but are there any recent examples of US 'monitoring' our own citizens, and then turning them into (whatever our form of) secret services? besides criminal behavior?

from my reading you imply that someone 'doing the right thing' like speaking out against for instance the overreach of our government - like i'm decrying right now - could land a US citizen in some Xinjiang-like interment camp for 're-education.'

prima face ridiculous comparison. so it goes with every CCP thread that spirals with attempts to distract and deflect. And hey maybe it works since I always seem to get sucked in.

and how is the overreach snowden revealed comparable to the active (as opposed to passive dragnet surveillance), constant, oppressive digital intervention of CCP in the lives of its citizens, let alone the gross misuse of tracking technology to perpetrate an ongoing genocide?