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by meowface 4274 days ago
>But I will say that the NSA's perspective is that: it is only because of the Snowden leaks if we have lost face with allies. To the NSA, the secrets were kept well enough until Snowden and friends disclosed them.

Of course that's their perspective, as is the perspective of anyone committing an embarrassing or morally unscrupulous act.

"The thing I regret most is getting caught."

Secrets of this nature have a tendency to leak. If it wasn't Snowden, it could've been anyone else.

I don't think all of the NSA's capabilities or actions should be leaked, but reporting of confirmed infiltrations of US and allied companies and systems is fine by my book. All's fair in love and war, but we are not at war with Germany or Brazil or, hopefully, ourselves.

1 comments

> the perspective of anyone committing an embarrassing or morally unscrupulous act

In this instance it was embarrassing because it brought into question how well the US would be able to keep secret strategic information.

And yeah hacking into allies is pretty unscrupulous. A bunch of the Snowden leaks showed that Israel, France, Germany and others have hacked into us.

It's the way it all works.

> Secrets of this nature have a tendency to leak. If it wasn't Snowden, it could've been anyone else

There were many such leaks, e.g. Binney.

> reporting of confirmed infiltrations of US and allied companies and systems is fine by my book

I agree wholeheartedly with this.

> ... Germany and others have hacked into us.

Could you elaborate? As far as I know, Germany has some kind of agreement to not spy on the US.

Found the reference to Israel/France, looking for Germany references.

http://hbpub.vo.llnwd.net/o16/video/olmk/holt/greenwald/NoPl... (pg 40/125)

Why the downvote here? The comment contributes to the conversation...

This PDF does not appear to have searchable text.

Could you provide direct citations or quotes of allied countries infiltrating our government or private infrastructure? Excluding Israel, because they have the same mindset as the NSA/CIA (in which case I also don't take issue with us hacking Israel).