[fit2rule]

Sorry, but your opinion is just plain wrong: It is not okay for a security agency to have this unchecked access to the worlds industrial resources. This sort of capability, unchecked, is more than enough justification for a declaration of war on the USA by, pretty much, any other major power out there. (It won't happen, but its definitely worthy of the act.)

The reason is: this activity completely undermines the sovereignty of every single nation. It invalidates and makes irrelevant any peaceful trade agreements made between different state actors. It completely violates human rights.

LOOK at the situation, don't just think about it. If you were Germany, would you be happy knowing that every Macbook in your country was reporting back to the NSA? Every Dell? Every HP?

[venomsnake]

I am looking. The main problem is unchecked. But also the article said they have the ability to do it per shipment.

And if the backdoors mention into the article about the software are zero days exploits they are totally fair game. If they are real backdoors - this is a whole other case. But there hasn't been leaked that kind of info except the RNG.

And in some perverted way if my PC has to report to someone I prefer it to be to NSA than to my own country.

[malandrew]

So instead of every single Macbook Pro, it's just those used by key people in your government and key people in industries that compete with industries the US government considers national security assets.

That's still enough to constitute an act of war. We are not at war with Germany. We are allied with them. What we are doing bugging our allies instead of using diplomacy shows that we are simply untrustworthy.