[ls15]

So Snowden could seek asylum in the EU, since he exposed espionage that was targeting the EU (and others)?

I have to say that I've lost yet another bit of respect for the German government (and those that followed) when they did not offer asylum to Snowden.

[zirgs]

What did he expose exactly? As far as I know - according to the US government - foreigners have no rights whatsoever so they could spy on everyone else completely legally. For example - they could install spyware/keylogger on my computer completely legally, because the 4th amendment doesn't apply to non-Americans.

[ls15]

That the U.S. selfishly sees non-Americans as unprotected game is nothing that the EU has to respect.

[zirgs]

That's how international espionage works. Everyone is spying on everyone else. Do you think that there aren't any European spies in the USA?

[ls15]

Maybe... they haven't told me. I am also not sure if the EU is running large scale wiretapping operations in the U.S. and I think that the U.S. would react in a drastic way if they learned about it - as opposed to the EU.

What I do know: U.S. citizens are protected by GDPR when they are in the EU.

[zirgs]

Not sure about large scale operations, but it would be stupid for them not to gather any intelligence in the USA. Especially when their security depends on the US.

Foreign intelligence agencies could not do much if they had to follow all the foreign laws. It's their job to gather intelligence abroad. What do you expect them to do? "Oh shit - this Russian law forbids us from gathering intelligence in Russia - we'd better stop and go home"?

Snowden's revelations didn't surprise me in the slightest. I already knew that US intelligence agencies could spy on me if they wanted to.

And I don't give a crap if they spy on US citizens, because I'm not an American.