Well, my motivation is less about whether this is wrong or right or whether this actually gives the US an advantage over our allies or just perpetuates pointless rivalries and more along the lines of “this is the way the game is played”. If Snowden doesn’t have the intel to attack all the major players and shame them into stepping down their intra-alliance spying, then he shouldn’t be attacking the US and UK exclusively while letting everyone else look like victims. We’re all up to our knees in this shit, and we’re not going to get out of it if we don’t do it together.
Not that the US isn’t likely amongst those nations that are deepest in it, but attacking just the US will just make our diplomats work that much harder and give that many more concessions to smooth ruffled feathers while our intelligence agencies work to prevent future leaks. We aren’t going to stop spying if no one else will. Not when there are terrorists who would love to provoke us into a moronically stupid overreaction like bombing Iran.
And yes, I did just equate the US to a landmine. Too big to fail doesn’t apply to just banks.
EDIT: changed ticking time bomb to landmine. Better analogy.
Which I consider quite irrelevant. It’s not a game. It’s a huge waste of resources, and it’s causing the US to fall into an even bigger chasm of political isolation.
Well, yes, but in the grand scheme of things everything is a game we’re playing before the (theorized) heat death of the universe - assuming we survive our sun going out, or our even more immediate problem of inadvertent venusforming.
No triumph of man will have meaning if the laws of thermodynamics are accurate, and the phrase “waste of resources” only has relevance to the shortest of geological timescales, much less cosmological.
That’s not to say we shouldn’t work to let as many people enjoy the party as possible, though. A sustainable human race is therefore the next best thing.
(Further off-topic philosophizing about life, the universe, and everything omitted)
Highly doubtful. But also only topical to this article by association with the NSA and Snowden. We are discussing the alleged spying by the US on its EU allies by bugging and wiretapping their US-hosted facilities and hacking (and bugging, I would expect) some of their European facilities, right? This isn’t about the domestic surveillance, which is a separate issue except as far as it corrupts the culture of US intelligence agencies and might lead to them going farther than our allies would accept.
Besides, the question is “do I have an indication of one of our western allies collecting intelligence on their own citizens” (besides the UK, which is a given). But once again, separate issue. It’s only relevance is the relationship to Snowden and the NSA, and how (in my opinion) it damages Snowden’s alleged cause, in particular how it makes him appear to have lied about only wanting to (poorly paraphrased) show the American public what it’s government was doing to them. I understand if that as an American you think this is also something we shouldn’t be doing, but I think the public is far more accepting of spying on foreigners and far more inclined to dismiss Snowden if he dilutes his message.
Futhermore, I know that many of you are not Americans, and my arguments do not apply. Feel free to feel indignant, and act on it; we lost this round of the great game. Been doing a bit of that lately.
If the founding fathers were magically transported forward in time, and you asked them their thoughts, what exactly do you think they would say? “Yeah, we were totally just kidding about the fourth amendment”? I think it is pretty clear who has taken a crap on the very idea of America, and it sure as shit isn’t Snowden. Our own government has turned traitor, serving itself rather than the nation. The US isn’t a government. It is a nation. Maybe he is a traitor to our traitor government, but he sure as hell isn’t a traitor to the nation or its ideals.
A majority of Americans are apparently fucking cowards. Bathtubs kill more Americans than terrorist. McDonalds kills a shit load more Americans than terrorist. The response to the NSA spying has been nothing but pure treasonous cowardice. Instead of standing up for the fourth amendment and the ideals that we don’t want a secret military spy agency being used against civilians, the Americans have surrendered.
It is sad and pathetic how far Americans have fallen. Brave Americans stormed beaches during World War 2, with some units suffering total destruction to uphold an ideal. Brave Americans faced down police lines and risked life and limb during the civil rights movement to uphold an ideal. Brave Americans pledged to commit nuclear self destruction in the defense of Western Europe during the Cold War. What has this pathetic generation of Americans done? To uphold the fourth amendment alls they have to do is control their bladder long enough to suffer through the day knowing that there is a one in a few million chance that instead of dying to diabetes, cancer, or a heart attack like most Americans, you might die in a freak terrorist attack. You don’t have to storm a beach head. You don’t need to face down a police line or risk lynching. You just need to control your pathetic trembling bladder and face down a risk that ranks below death by bathtub.
The fact that most Americans are okay with domestic spying by a military spy agency is something to be ashamed, as it speaks to our despicable and pathetic cowardice. We should have the guts to burn the Bill of Rights, as this worthless and pathetic generation of cowards has made it fit for nothing more than toilet paper.
TL;DR: That sure is a lot of coward talk spewing from your mouth.
And I mostly agree. Hell, maybe the younger generations, mine included, will remember these lessons and collectively work against overreacting to terrorist attacks, robbing them of their power over us.
However, I don’t think you read much of what I’ve written (OK, I’ll cop to spewed, and that may have had an impact on your comprehension, frankly it’s amazing how applicable http://xkcd.com/386/ is), but the main point I’ve been trying (and obviously failing, sorry about going off on tangents) to make is that THIS is not about domestic spying. THIS is about good old fashioned spying practiced by many of those same generations you and I admire, using modern technologies, and that it kinda-sorta weakens the impact of Snowden’s arguments against our developing surveillance state when he starts in on practices that the public has accepted as necessary for national security for generations, putting up the backs of people who would otherwise be receptive to the idea that maybe creating networks of who is connected to who that can (apparently) be readily accessed by any Tom Dick or Harry with clearance and a grudge might not be such a great idea. And that’s just one of the domestic spying programs that Snowden apparently had access to!
But he’s changed topic (allegedly). He should have stuck to the message.
You’re dead wrong. Where the hell do you get that impression from?
Der Spiegel (German pronunciation: [deːɐ ˈʃpiːɡəl], lit. “The Mirror”)
is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. It is one of
Europe’s largest publications of its kind, with a weekly circulation
of more than one million. […] Der Spiegel is known in
German-speaking countries mostly for its investigative journalism. It
played a key role in uncovering many political scandals such as the
Spiegel scandal in 1962 and the Flick affair in the 1980s. According
to The Economist, Der Spiegel is one of continental Europe’s most
influential magazines.
You do know that kicking your allies in the balls and snooping around their stuff when they are looking isn’t behaviour usually with allies?
I know that Americans are prone to hyperbole (from a German point of view), so I didn’t truly believe that the US were “friends” with us. deGaulle was right when he said that Nations don’t have friends, they have interests, But to so blatantly disregard your allies interests goes beyond what I imagined the US would do. Claiming that this was legal because it didn’t affect Americans is also worrisome, because it illustrates an us-vs-them mindset. Not that this is very new, either, too - in wargames during the cold war, the US command was quite willing to use nukes on German ground even against the protest of their German allies. Sorry, I meant vassals, because that’s what you really want, despite your rhetoric about fostering democracy and human rights.
I just have to marvel at your understanding of politics. You managed to piss off most of South America during the last 50 years. Now you needless endanger the good relations to Europe. And I predict, after that some of your preferred partners in global surveillance (like Australia and the UK) will come to a rude awakening.
[quote=“nweaver, post:8, topic:1742, full:true”]France is already notorious for using their spies for economic/industrial espionage.[/quote]Yeah, and for using their multinationals to base ther spies overseas.
