[rndswisscitizen]

I was born in Switzerland and as a child was interested in Morse telegraphy. The military paid an amateur radio course for everyone doing this. When I was 20 they realized this and put me in the electronic warfare department. Every year everyone from military has to do some repetition courses. I my department everyone was actually working on real world data during this weeks. They did regular background checks if anyone of this group had any police records. To get this records, I always had to sign a paper (I just write this to show that not even the military could just access personal information).

Every year and especially during my initial training we had to do several tests. One of the main questions which was repeated thousands times and hammered into our brains, was: on who can we spy. It was not allowed to fail in this basic tests or you had to repeat them ad nausea.

The main rule was: Never ever spy, on any circumstances, on Swiss citizens. You want to spy on foreign things? Go ahead. But never ever on our own citizens.

I actually cannot say how reality looks, just what every soldier within the electronic warfare department had to go through.

[tptacek]

Sure, but the, the US says exactly the same thing.

The immediate questions then are:

* What exactly is "spying"? The Swiss government appears to use signals intelligence in drug interdiction and child pornography.

* How ambitious is Swiss counterterrorism? Is it a local criminal enforcement project, or a foreign policy thing?

* Is there a distinction drawn between targets of surveillance, which are usually foreign, and collateral damage to people communicating with them?

* Does that policy apply to Swiss citizens, or to anyone on Swiss soil?