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by mc32 8 days ago
Hasn’t that been the assumption since Carnivore? Also we tapped European pols phones back in ‘12, was it? Though it’s not like the Eu are a bunch of innocents either…

It’s not a new thing. Industrial espionage has always been a thing as well. So has bribery (for deals) been a thing especially by euro concerns.
3 comments
traceroute66 8 days ago
> It’s not a new thing. Industrial espionage has always been a thing as well.

Well sure, except with closed US LLMs you're basically just handing them data on a plate, and paying for the privilege. ;)

Very American really ... monetising industrial espionage.

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radicalbyte 8 days ago
Our intelligence services have capabilities, it's not just the US. The Patriot / Cloud Act increase the scope outside of intelligence agencies. I'm of the opinion that for military intelligence there is a legitimate need to have some - black - capability. It should just be highly limited in scope.
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traceroute66 7 days ago
> It should just be highly limited in scope

"should" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

I agree it is hard to escape some form of legitimate need for intel.

The concern with intel and the present US administration comes on the checks, balances and controls side.

We are after all dealing with an administration happy to conduct much of its most sensitive business on Signal using off-the-shelf phones.

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mc32 7 days ago
I don’t think these issues only exist or have existed in this admin. Previous admins were tapping the phones of the heads of state of Europe. There was also mishandling of intelligence. Perhaps the magnitude is changed though I don’t have evidence for that.

Some of it I think is selective picking. Similar to election interference where we know quite a few foreign states like interfering with our elections but we typically only hear about one of those states as being the culprit. Now, obviously we like interfering as well (Ukraine in ‘14 and Iran today, though Iran would be less controversial) and many others over the years.

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sneak 8 days ago
No. Lots of people have never heard of FAA702 (which has been well-documented in mass media) much less Carnivore or ECHELON.

The default email provider for most people in the west is Gmail.

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