Comment by bradleyjg
12 years ago
> It's hard not to come to the conclusion that these activities were essentially criminal. I don't see how the administration can fail to disavow them, investigate them fully, and hold their instigators accountable. It feels like Special Prosecutor time.
The government takes the position that their agents are almost completely unconstrained by law when it comes to actions taken abroad aimed at non-US persons.
Even were a court somewhere to find that this interpretation is incorrect, there are numerous "good faith reliance" doctrines that prevent any prosecution or even civil consequences.
The government outright tortured people for years, and nothing has come of it. No prosecutions. No damages for victims. No cases dismissed for outrageous government conduct. Not even very many harsh words from judges. The only people for whom there were any consequences were the low level regular army people who got in on the torture train without first getting official blessing.
It'll be the same thing here. If some low level employee went out on his own to hack into Google servers, something might come of it. But by all appearances these programs were deliberate, planned, and vetted. In those circumstances the bad actors have long since learned to cover their own asses. There will be no consequences for them.
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 can not remember when something similar made me that angry as the current conduct of the US does. If I would not know better that this would negatively affect the whole world and innocent US citizens and that emotional reactions are usually not good - I would just cut all cables to the US, stop all trades of oil, raw material and goods, deny US citizens to enter any foreign country and then just do your shit over there and get happy with it.
EDIT: Just to clarify it a bit more, I am not primarily angry because of the spying - read my mails if it makes you happy. What really pisses me of is this sentiment of thinking of non-US citizens as second class humans. We are not spying at US citizens, only at this other guys across the ocean. And sadly this sentiment is also present in part of the media coverage. 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.
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.
No. Sorry. The President does bear full responsibility. That's the nature of the job.
If he wants to claim he wasn't aware, OK. But he is now and it's his responsibility to fix it. Again, that's the nature of the job.
If the President wanted to eliminate these programs, they'd get eliminated. It would require the exercise of political will, but it absolutely could be done.
The problem, actually, is right here, when people start making excuses for our leaders.
Stop.
Hold them responsible. Responsibility is why the job even exists.
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"My sense is that the people who make these policies really are "Beyond Elections". They are constants in our government."
Yes, these people are our fellow citizens. There is no conspiracy, merely functioning democracy.
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I believe strongly in "win win" solutions; in a broad internationalism that tries (at least in principle) to find solutions that benefit the whole of humanity (perhaps not uniformly, but uniformly enough to make everybody a net winner).
That last phrase really spooks me. "Look to their own interests". Saddens me a bit, too.
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I guess it's time for the ultimate exit.
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.
The problem is not so much about the expected behavior of a spy agency, or how the US government justify itself "But it's only on non-citizens". That's kind of expected, like you explained.
The problem is when the medias, the public and politicians are reassuring and reassured by that "But it's only for non-citizens".
To a foreigner like me, what I see is that US citizens, medias and politicians are just fine with my fundamental rights being violated. That is as long as I'm not a US citizen... a clear statement that to those eyes, the problem is of less magnitude because I'm not as important a being as US citizens are.
Do I have less a right to privacy because I am not a US citizen? Is it more ethical or moral?
I'm not talking of my legal rights on a US soil; because legality has not much to do with morality. Really, in this argument I don't care about the NSA's goal, or all the spy agencies' goals. I care about how the public reacts; nobody cared as long as it was only about violating the privacy of those without US citizenship. Second class humans.
That's incredibly insulting. It makes me angry.
And worst of all, I feel like I can't even express myself on that topic without fearing repercussion. When one day at the airport, I'll cross the custom lanes and some automated filter will have flagged me as a national security threat because I once posted outrage about how they treat non-citizens.
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There are of course differences in the treatment of citizens and non-citizens and this for good reasons like controlling immigration. But there should be no differences when it comes to human rights including privacy rights and this is what I complain about - different treatment as to human rights. And this goes beyond spying and also includes for example torturing people in Guantanamo. And yes, not only the US are breaking foreign law, but this does not at all justify this behavior.
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> 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?
> Do you really believe that this is the modus operandi only of the United States?
Your fallacy is: Tu quoque http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
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The US is reportedly spying on the phone calls of 35 world leaders. How many countries are spying on the phone calls of President Obama? Does France have access to the phone calls of Obama?
Some countries would love to spy on the U.S. It's true. But how many actually successfully do? And at what scale?
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First, I clearly presented this as a hypothetical and emotional reaction and I did this purely to illustrate my feelings. Second, I obviously can not be angry about a country but only about people. Currently there are a quite a few people from the US government I see regularly in the media and they make me angry with what they say, but there is nothing special about this people being from the USA.
I have been to France once and while the overall experience was very good there was one bad experience. We had a problem with the motorway toll and stopped to ask a woman working at a toll station. She was obviously able to understand my English question but did not even try to answer in English and I did not understand a single word. This was not bad enough to make me angry but it was very impolite and I have no understanding for this, not even given the history of the relationship between France and Germany. I knew that I had to expect things like this, but it was a single exception and I am happy about this.
So no doubt that there are many people in many countries thinking of their own people as superior, but this is not acceptable in any case.
France hasn't built itself on a platform of French Exceptionalism. The USA demonstrably has.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism
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> 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.
> People keep comparisons to the Stasi, too often they forget what the Stasi's purpose was: to suppress political opposition
That's however not how the Stasi thought of itself though, or how it was presented in propaganda.
http://andberlin.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/propaganda-in-t...
"For our security"
US intelligence agencies do keep tabs on stuff like Occupy, and of course it's officially "to prevent terrorism".. I for one don't buy it.
In particular, domestic surveillance is a completely different beast vis-a-vis foreign surveillance: spying outside one's own state comes with it the almost total absence of state's monopoly on force (and, furthermore, the protection of the government in the state being spied upon).
Omniscience without omnipotence is tolerable, as is omnipotence without omniscience. The real trouble happens when you've got both.
CIA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor
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.
Come on, say it to my face! You don't believe non-US people have a right to privacy. That's me! Your agencies can do whatever they want to me, but not to you.
You're on the public Internet, you're not "within national borders", and everybody can hear what you just said. Say it to my face. Tell me how you feel that it's just fine to violate my privacy, that it's apparently perfectly fine to pry into my life, hack my phone networks, to gather any possible information there is to know about me and all those around me, just because I'm not a US citizen, and you are. You are better and are entitled to these protections, I don't.
> The same holds true, modulo agency name and country, for any other country.
Not every country believes that their citizens are somehow exceptional and non-citizens can be treated however they please.
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> The purpose of intelligence agencies is to spy on non-citizens, both in peacetime and in wartime.
No, the purpose of intelligence agencies is to gather and analyze information that might be of use to the nations leaders. Spying -- whether on citizens or foreigners, and whether on people located within the country or abroad -- is often a mechanism used to gather information (though collection from public sources is also a common mechanism.)
And there's nothing really special about the foreign vs. domestic (whether by location or citizenship) axis for "intelligence agencies", generally -- while sometimes the agencies that do domestic and foreign intelligence gathering are separate, that's not always the case, and certainly not a defining feature of "intelligence agencies."
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That is what I would prefer. I can not think of a good reason why we (Germany) should spy at our friends like France, the UK or the USA. Agencies should gather information about (potentially) dangerous citizens in their country and share this information with other countries. I have also no problem with collecting information in war zones and I include countries hosting terrorists where you can not rely on there agencies to provide good information here.
So it turns out, you can apply the naturalistic fallacy to things that are entirely of human construction...
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.
> every single country out there that has a foreign policy and interests abroad behaves in this way to one extent or another.
I'm German, and I can't remember ever having heard such a distinction - that some things are okay when done to foreigners, but not when done to Germans - apart from neo-nazis.
Sure, who knows what the BND is up to. But "behaving this way" also includes rhetoric that is not just considered acceptable in polite company, but even uttered by state officials... and as I said, I can't recall a single example, so maybe enlighten me? Or are you just assuming?
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> 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.
Simply not true. There may be a few large countries trying, but at nowhere near the global capability to lay bare all details of just about any person on the planet, like the US. And that's just comparing to the larger countries. The UK hacked Belgian telecoms, you're going to have to show me some proof that the reverse is also true. That's ridiculous.
The consequences of the Netherlands "behaving in this way to one extent or another" towards the US--yes, even a little bit--would not be very positive for the Netherlands. We do, however, "have a foreign policy and interests abroad".
The fact that the US believes it can get away with this sort of behaviour (and we'll have to see about that), doesn't somehow make it right or justify it in any way.
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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...
France and Germany can't. They are both export based economies.
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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.
The US government throws its weight around by ordering sanctions against countries that have policies it does not agree with. I have no doubt that, where sanctions would be politically unpopular, there are back-room blackmailings of some type.
That said, instituting similar sanctions against the US should absolutely be the number one thing the rest of the world responds with! It might not be every US citizen that is culpable, but they are your representative government, and your responsibility. (I assume you're from the US, but I use "your" as a collective for anyone from the US that may be reading this).
Do you think the people might take a legitimate stand if business dealings, travel, and exports were banned to the United States? Do you think US citizens would go absolutely fucking crazy?
> As for fixing things, the government has become literally unmanageable, and things are a mess right now
Well untangle yourselves and then we'll talk.
Unfortunately, the US has so much power around the world that most countries are literally unable to respond. They are the new Rome, using political and economic power rather than pure force (but use force where necessary) to control the world. It's disgusting.
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Unfortunately, not only do a lot of US citizens still support such practices (I think around 40 percent - as long as they mention "to protect you from terrorists"), but most of the rest who don't agree with the practices, can't be bothered to do much about it, like even calling their representative, let alone going out and protesting.
I do believe this is very true:
> All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing - Burke, Edmund
So, yes, I'd say most Americans are responsible for this yes, by doing nothing to stop it. So don't blame the rest of the world if they start "hating Americans" or "hating America". You are part of it, you are responsible to change the America you want the world to love, too.
Blaming only the government, that you probably voted in, too, does not cut it.
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>not all US citizens
The vast majority of citizens support these initiatives. Given the winner-take-all approach we employ, it is not a stretch to say that yes, we all share blame.
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Well, let's look at the policies of the US against rogue states: sanctions. What GP is describing is connectivity sanctions rather than trade or economic ones.
That's why I mentioned »innocent US citizens«. ;)
Yeah, but US citizens vote for their government, so are therefore accountable. I don't see you out in the streets with pitchforks, so you're as culpable as the primary perpetrators.
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?
I am to lazy to type it again, but this comment [1] from me fits your comment pretty well.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6643253
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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 read the article. But I am not angry because of the actual incidents - what makes me angry is the sentiment, thinking of non-US people as second class humans. And I would happily lunch everybody into outer space who does this, including everyone from my own country, Germany.
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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.
Borrowing money at interest is not leeching. That is not how macroeconomics works. Defaulting is maybe leeching.
Manipulating the defacto world currency -- that is leeching.
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> actions taken abroad aimed at non-US persons.
And there is an interesting counterpoint to that, e.g.
> "If the Americans eavesdropped on cellphones in Germany, they broke German law on German soil, and those responsible must be held accountable."
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/10/28/world/obama-unaw...
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.
Typically, if a diplomat constantly breaks the laws of the nation they're sent to in this manner, they get kicked out, and if the sender country in question keeps sending this sort of diplomat, the embassy would eventually be closed.
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All espionage that Country A does in Country B is illegal in Country B. That's why it's espionage.
You are missing the "and therefore there it is unreasonable for you to be upset" leap.
Pointing out that illegal things are illegal isn't really a interesting contribution to the discussion, is it? I assume that wasn't all you meant to do.
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...
One should add: secret contracts (laws, for germans), that the population isn't being allowed to know about.
This is being disputed by the government, AFAIK.
> The government takes the position that their agents are almost completely unconstrained by law when it comes to actions taken abroad aimed at non-US persons.
More to the point of the article here, the government takes the position that their agents are completely unconstrianed by law when it comes to using information shared by foreign intelligence services that their agents had no part in collecting, and the collection here is done by the GCHQ -- a British intelligence agency -- who simply provides NSA the privilege of submitting search terms and getting matching data from the collection GCHQ does from their taps.
And yet we civilians are still liable for receiving stolen goods.
"The government takes the position that their agents are almost completely unconstrained by law when it comes to actions taken abroad aimed at non-US persons. "
It's worse than this. You also generally can't sue the US government civilly unless they allow you to. US has abrogated sovereign immunity in certain situations for certain types of torts, but ..
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.
"Civil immunity is a subset of completely unconstrained by law"
Sorry, I didn't read it that way :) Since the original thread seemed to be about criminalness, I assumed you meant they could not be charged criminally for their actions.
There is a huge difference, as you point out, between civil and criminal liability.
> actions taken abroad aimed at non-US persons.
Aren't Google and Yahoo US persons?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood#Corporatio...
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.
Well...
given the game the leakers are playing with these documents...
I would wait before I made any definitive statements about who is a victim and who is a villain.
The release of these documents seem to be carefully timed and calculated to give the government, corporations and people involved in the surveillance state the time and latitude to incriminate themselves.
Not only are the Government, the corporations and the people involved trying to tell a story... clearly the leakers are trying to tell a story as well.
Are we at the climax of the leakers' plot? or are we still building?
I think it might be best to get a look at all the cards first... and then decide what happened.
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Doesn't Google and Yahoo both operate shell companies overseas in order to avoid US taxes though?
I'm sure the other branches of US government would be delighted if NSA would share with them - not the secret data, but their data processing tools.
I mean, it appears that NSA has the ability to separate the retrieved gmail data into citizens and non-citizens, so they can legally use the non-citizen part of data and throw the 'forbidden' US-citizen data away. Think of the wonders that we could do with such technology! We wouldn't need passports anymore, when arriving from another country, you just provide your gmail account, TSA systems check that you're a citizen and lets you right in with a smile...
> The government outright tortured people for years, and nothing has come of it.
I am not saying it's OK, but in that case, most US citizens aren't even affected. In the case of surveillance, data from US citizens is being directly compromised. Their attempt to do what they want to foreign individuals with surveillance actually causes some collateral damage to US citizens.
> 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.
What?! since when non-us citzens can vote?
remember that democracy (even half-implemented as it is in the US) is the dictatorship or the majority (that can vote).
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I only made the distinction because someone pointed out that it's difficult for government agencies to get in legal trouble unless US citizens are the ones being harmed.
Monroe Doctrine 2.0