Comment by tptacek

I'm a US citizen.

Born and bred.

And, at this point, I can't in good faith say that I would blame you.

I think it's pretty safe to say that getting rid of a President is no longer enough. My sense is that the people who make these policies really are "Beyond Elections". They are constants in our government. And appear unassailable.

I doubt very much that we, the American People, could even IDENTIFY the people setting or implementing these policies, much less rid ourselves of them.

I think in the present environment, it wouldn't be imprudent for other nations to look to their own interests.

For what little is it worth, a lot of us American citizens have a real problem with our government not extending the concept of the natural rights that we supposedly have to everyone, everywhere. Of course, these days they aren't even really bothering to discriminate and are just fucking us all over, though I guess they do apologize a bit more when they get caught fucking over Americans.

Also, while I think this sort of spying is terrible I'm even more sickened by things like the fact that we keep killing innocent people with drones and such and justifying it as acceptable collateral damage when nobody will tell us who the real targets were, why they had to be killed, and why that was so important that accidentally killing a few hundreds or thousands of innocents while pursuing them is reasonable.

At this point we're so far down the slippery slope that the rest of you might as well cut us off if you can. I'm unconvinced we are going to right this ship anytime soon, we as the group of citizens whose net worth isn't in the billions have lost control of the bus.

While I agree the NSA's conduct is outrageous you seem to be confused about how countries actually work. Every country treats non-citizens worse than citizens - fewer rights and benefits, more limited (if any) work opportunities, additional hassles, etc. And most countries have intelligence agencies that spy on foreign countries and their citizens often in ways that break foreign laws. Don't be so naive.

> I am at a loss for words. Arrogant, self-righteous, disrespectful, ignorant, mendacious...nothing cuts it. It is illegal in the US but who cares about the rest of the world?

Do you really believe that this is the modus operandi only of the United States?

Since, say, France has _at least_ the same position with regard to the rest of the world vs. French citizens, are you angry at France too? Will you cut all french, german, russian, and bahranian cables as well, so as to maintain a consistent position?

> It is illegal in the US but who cares about the rest of the world?

I think it's entirely justifiable to give the NSA more latitude abroad than domestically. To turn reverse the scenario, as an American, I would far rather have the French or the Germans conducting surveillance on the United States than the US government. People keep comparisons to the Stasi, too often they forget what the Stasi's purpose was: to suppress political opposition. Here in the US, surveillance was used for the same purpose, on a much smaller scale, during the J. Edgar Hoover era. Political opponents of the government were spied on with the intent of blackmail or embarassment.

That's the whole reason why government surveillance is so scary. It puts so much information in the hands of an organization with such far-reaching powers in law enforcement and otherwise that the combination is prone to abuse. When the US spies on foreign citizens or vice versa, the potential for abuse is much less. The NSA has neither the interest nor the ability to harass political opponents in Germany and France, and the same goes in the other direction.

The purpose of intelligence agencies is to spy on non-citizens, both in peacetime and in wartime. One might argue that traditionally they focused on public figures in the foreign states and that spying on average foreigners is new; I don't know if that's true, but seems plausible.

It would generally be a dereliction of duty for the NSA/CIA to not spy on non-Americans. The same holds true, modulo agency name and country, for any other country.

Now, if you want to make the argument that national borders should dissolve and that spying on foreigners should become history - or something like that - that's up to you. But spy agency gonna spy.

but spying at non-US citizens and breaking foreign law in peacetime is deemed acceptable.

First let me say that I agree with your sentiment -- it's hypocritical for people in the US to be upset about the US government's spying on its own citizens, but not upset when the people are in other countries.

Now for a dose of realism -- every single country out there that has a foreign policy and interests abroad behaves in this way to one extent or another. The question is not whether but how much. I'm receptive to ideas for something to replace this general approach to intelligence gathering. But let's not apply a double-standard in the opposite direction and say that only when the US does the spying is it a problem.

I am at a loss for words. Arrogant, self-righteous, disrespectful, ignorant, mendacious...nothing cuts it. It is illegal in the US but who cares about the rest of the world?

I'm as appalled as the next guy about the NSA's actions, but let's keep this in perspective here: many countries have 2 intelligence agencies, one for external and one for internal. Do "MI-5" and "MI-6" ring a bell?

Plus, in this particular instance: the GCHQ (British version of NSA) is the one passing along the wiretapped stuff to the NSA.

> We are not spying at US citizens, only at this other guys across the ocean.

In this instance, it's the guys across the ocean who are spying, and passing on the results to us.

> What really pisses me of is this sentiment of thinking of non-US citizens as second class humans.

When a group puts a draws a line of Us and them, they are making enemies. With this approach the NSA is declaring the USA as the enemies of all those being spied upon. The more similar news spread the more this mentality that "The USA is the enemy" will spread and its only a matter of time that more countries turn a blind eye or even facilitate terrorist actions against the USA.

> What really pisses me of is this sentiment of thinking of non-US citizens as second class humans.

If this is really what you believe, then start pushing for legislation to include non-US citizens as first-class humans.

That's why, ironically, the best hope for privacy-minded US citizens (like a good part of HN readers) comes from outside governments.

People like Brazilian president, Dilma Rousseff, that had the courage to cancel state visits and declaring outraged by the state-sponsored spying supported by the Obama Administration.

We need many more governments standing up and threatening to cut commercial ties with the US, until we can see some traction.

Sadly, I'm not very hopeful that this will happen, given the commercial interests involved. Mexico had a slow initial response, but it's starting to demonstrate some reaction. Germany and France are my hopes [1].

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/22/mexico-presiden...

I'm torn between the two sides of this coin.

As both a US citizen and world citizen (how can we who've grown up in the Internet age not feel a little more worldly?) it feels violating to know this has been going on, and that it likely effects me.

On the other side, it has forever been, and continues to be, in a physical-boundary-defined nation's best interest to know things about every other nation, in order to compete within international relationships. I would be surprised to find a major international player that didn't have a clandestine agent group or groups like the CIA or NSA.

It's a very tough and frustrating topic. Spying always feels disrespectful and arrogant to the spied upon. But should we implicitly assert that this isn't done by the rest[0] of the intelligence agencies around the world?

0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_intelligence_agencies

The government of a country, any country, owes allegiance to its citizens first and foremost. Our laws do not apply to people in other countries. I can't imagine that most large governments other than the US do run in exactly the same manner.

I'm not defending the NSA, but let's not be naive here. One function of the government is to protect its people from all threats, foreign and domestic. So yes, citizens of other countries are second class, and well they should be from some perspectives. Again though, there are lines, and some have been crossed.

I would just cut all cables to the US, ... deny US citizens to enter any foreign country and then just do your shit over there and get happy with it.

Whoah, there. Your grievances are well-placed. But keep in mind that it's a certain subset of agencies in the US government that are responsible for the problems you're upset about, not all US citizens. As for fixing things, the government has become literally unmanageable, and things are a mess right now.

But, by denying movement, you are suggesting to treat US citizens as second class humans. To what purpose? in order to punish them? To educate them about your importance?

All i can say to your heayed comment is that it is a good thing that you're not in a position of power to act in such a way that would sever the worlds ties with the US.

Especially when the story broke there was a lot of outrage about (accidentally) spying at US citizens, but spying at non-US citizens and breaking foreign law in peacetime is deemed acceptable.

What did you used to think foreign intelligence services did?

If you had read the article you would know that this data was given to the NSA by the GHCQ. Would you cut off the UK? Australia and Canada?

I had the exact same feelings when I saw so many people go "They will just borrow more money" in the recent US govt. shutdown. The arrogance is unbelievable. Shows complete lack of remorse over leeching off the rest of the world.

Very disappointed in the american citizens' reaction to the catastrophic political decisions their leaders have been making for decades.

The problem is that the people who were actually in Germany breaking German law were (likely) on diplomatic passports and so have plenary immunity. Meanwhile, under international law, which German courts take seriously even if US courts do not, senior state officials have functional immunity for actions taken in an official capacity with a disputed exception for violations of jus cogens+.

While there may be some room between the people on the ground who are immune and the senior officials who are immune to prosecute mid-level functionaries, that's not terribly satisfying and there still remains the problem of getting them in front of the court.

See generally: http://www.lawfareblog.com/2013/10/the-nsa-affair-goes-crimi...

+The most serious types of international norms: things like genocide, slavery, torture, and piracy.

All espionage that Country A does in Country B is illegal in Country B. That's why it's espionage.

They did not break German Law. Germany still has past WWII contracts with the Allied Nations in certain areas.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=ht...

And yet we civilians are still liable for receiving stolen goods.

Civil immunity is a subset of completely unconstrained by law. For example, judges are entitled to absolute civil immunity for actions taken in an official capacity. But they have occasionally been charged criminally for actions for which they were civilly immune.

Actually, if I were Google or Yahoo, I would be getting my lawyers to prepare some type of lawsuit. Not that I think it will succeed, but Google/Yahoo are direct victims here.

Doesn't Google and Yahoo both operate shell companies overseas in order to avoid US taxes though?

> I am not saying it's OK, but in that case, most US citizens aren't even affected.

There is a very strong line of reasoning that says terrorist attacks and thousands of America soldiers killed in combat are a direct result of these kinds of foreign policies.

Who cares about the collateral damage done to US citizens? The problem is the damage done to non-US citizens.

The likelihood miles and miles of cabling, much of it presumably leased, will be compromised is nowhere near comparable to the likelihood a normal, single-location office/home ethernet LAN will be compromised. (And if you think both are easily compromised, that only adds to my original point.)

Google doesn't actually own the underwater cables though. So isn't the analogy more like sending things through a LAN in a building that you're renting?

Do not trust that your internal networks are secure. Any links carrying business or customer data should be encrypted.

I remember over a decade ago talking with the security head of a university where I was working, about a new system design. I made some comment like "well this is all on the machine room network" and his response was "I wouldn't trust the machine room network." Pretty eye-opening since he was the person responsible for its security.

http://www.cs.uccs.edu/~xzhou/teaching/CS522/Projects/SIGCOM...

There's the actual paper google wrote. It's very good. OpenFlow is a terrific piece of technology.

Do they actually own and operate all of the wires between various datacenters? That sounds like a huge undertaking.

Assuming that the fiber end points only touch Google data centers, this would be ok, I guess.

Deal!

Snowden isn't a patriot though.

Certainly he has revealed a lot of scary information about the government that the people needed to know about, but opposing the state (which is what Snowden seems to do) does not always equate to supporting the nation.

Some of Snowden's disclosures have been directly harmful to American interests without a corresponding harm being done to the American people that would have warranted that disclosure. For instance, his leak of details of NSA hacking attempts against China.

Likewise, his disclosures about spying against allied heads-of-state. Knowing what your friends truly think would be invaluable for American interests when negotiating. I certainly agree that spying on friends like that is distasteful, but revealing that can't possibly be said to have helped the American people.

Whats the charge for a state being the enemy of its own citizens?

When your opponent uses Navy submarines to tap undersea cables right under the Soviets' noses, you probably shouldn't trust your leased fiber with unencrypted data. This interception could occur where undersea cables make landfall without any datacenter antics.

The article seems to suggest that it was inter-site links that were compromised and not actual Google data centers. Those compromises could happen at telco data centers or even in the field (e.g., by splicing monitoring equipment into a cable).

Wait, so until google can defend its cages against the g-men, then all efforts will be in vain.

Also, in other countries, I assume those g-men have access to those cages.

I used to work in the antivirus industry, and, as I recall, anything that even hinted at a history of hacking or virus-writing would lead to instant dismissal and black-listing (from pretty much the entire computer security industry). I imagine that the same prohibition would now apply to former government employees also.

The sad fact of the matter is that we cannot trust individuals that have ever worked with these agencies, nor with the private contractors that supply them. The risk of insider attacks is too high. Equally, we cannot trust companies that employ those individuals.

If silicon valley is to recover the confidence of it's customers, it must go through the painful and heart-rending exercise of dismissing all employees with any connection whatsoever to government espionage. Many innocent people will lose their jobs, and will face the prospect of being excluded from high-tech employment in the private sector, but I cannot see any other way of regaining trust in our fundamental infrastructure.

I imagine anyone with a line on their resume that says "NSA - Software Developer - 2009:Present" is going to have a hard time finding a new job at many companies (although certainly not all).

You are correct, I've misunderstood this program and perhaps the parent post I was responding to. Oh well, can't win 'em all. This is in addition to the PRISM programs we've already seen.

Sure, but the phrase "plausible deniability" just reeks of government and corporate double-speak: "you can't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt I did it, so I can keep on doing it." Plausibly denying something is just a propaganda technique.

Did Google know or not? Did Google participate or not?

re: bediger4000

The phrase has that smell when used by the person denying. If an action or inaction is taken to preserve plausible deniability, it is smelly.

But when used by an observer after the fact, it just means that we have no way to know they knew, unless there is proof. So if they say they didn't know, it is a believable statement.

including preemptively working to encrypt cross-dc traffic

You do know that the national security apparatus can and does force companies to lie in press releases to the public about security- and privacy-related matters? Who's to say Google isn't flat out lying to us about that? There's no legal reason they can't lie to us if our secret courts force them to.

The problem now is we can't trust even the supposed "good guys" because the government has completely tainted the well with their secret courts and gag orders on companies (while still forcing them to comply).