[proveanegative]

I read this bundling as a deliberate rhetorical/political move. You could have bundled the US with other surveillance-happy Western nations such as Australia or the UK, which as far as I understand do not behave in a qualitatively different manner.

[dredmorbius]

Not only do the UK, Australia, or Canada and New Zealand for that matter, not behave qualitatively differently, but as the "Five Eyes" surveillance states, they'll spy on one another's citizens (and occasionally their own) for one another, effectively gutting any legislative prohibitions on domestic surveillance.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/104092656004159577193/posts/2ncB...

Tipped off to me by SoftwareMaven here at HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9077061

(Links are described in more detail in my G+ post above)

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/20/us-uk-secret-de...

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/02/revealed-austra...

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/jun/10/nsa-offers-i...

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/06/21/uk-usa-security-bri...

[pyre]

Said information shared was found illegal in the UK recently.

[dredmorbius]

Source?

[pyre]

Looks like it wasn't an actual court. I was recalling incorrectly: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/feb/06/gchq-mass-int...

[dredmorbius]

Thanks.

[harry8]

And I guess there's a school of thought that from this perspective Australia and the UK are different countries in name only and are following US policy as dictated? True or not it's reasonable rhetoric I guess.