Comment by danbruc
12 years ago
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.
Maybe I'm not being clear.
My assertion is that trust has broken down. And therefore the ability to validate has broken down.
Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that the President and the Congress eliminate these programs...
How would you or I... or any foreign person validate that?
How would I, in good faith, tell a foreign person, or even another citizen, that their communications are no longer being monitored?
I don't believe we could give such assurances.
So even in the BEST case where the President and the politicians eliminate the programs... we would not be able to assert in good faith that there is no longer any communications monitoring going on.
The flaw in your idea, is that it is predicated on trust in the system.
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> If the President wanted to eliminate these programs, they'd get eliminated.
Just like Guantanamo Bay, right?
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This. I secretly harbor this fantasy that the next Edward Snowden will be a future American president. They do everything right, cross all the t's, dot all the i's, the perfect politician, then after their first 100 days in office, they come out and publicly address all the ways that the US is hypocritical and could be the model World citizen it pretends to be.
At the end of the day, the presidency is the only position that is beyond the reproach of anyone behind the scenes that may be using their powers to pull strings. If he has ever been coerced by hidden powers, he alone could unveil them and be believed by all the non-believers. Alternatively, he could choose to promise exercise his pardon rights for people who want to expose wrongdoing but are afraid. He had the power to protect people from jail. That's the power to allow people to expose wrongdoing without fear of retaliation (unless we've gone so far down the rabbit hole that someone can make the whistleblower just disappear.)
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> Hold them responsible. Responsibility is why the job even exists
Just so we're clear - how exactly does the average citizen "hold them responsible", other than our legal right to simply not vote for them next time?
It's so easy to say we should "hold them responsible" - but so incredibly vague to do.
I think the problem you are missing is that "nobody is innocent" and these bad actors have all the knowledge.
So when a President comes into office, they probably make it known that they have these N pieces of information, and well, they are going to do what they want unless said President wants those N pieces of information public.
Thats the really really scary realization here. Shadow government obtained through perfect intelligence with no checks and bounds.
The problem is that you can hold all the presidents responsible you want and that does not have the power to change this problem.
Congress, perhaps.
"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.
"functioning" democracy?? are you joking? do you know anything about campaign finance?
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"Citizen are involved" and "the democracy is not function as intended and/or there is a situation that can not be rectified democratically" are anything but mutually exclusive.
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It may be a functioning democracy to whatever degree, but is it still a constitutional republic?
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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.
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.
Correct. You have no legal right to privacy in the US and enjoy none of the legal protections from our government that citizens enjoy (or should). You can be renditioned, spied on and wiretapped with no legal recourse in the US. Similarly Americans don't enjoy legal protections from the governments of other countries.
Now two countries may enter into an agreement not to surveil each other or their citizens. That is completely a different issue. But if you are not a US citizen or don't have a visa than the Constitution affords you no protections.
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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.
There are no differences, both in practice and in theory, to the privacy rights of citizens and non-citizens. Everyone is spied on, and it is legal. The NSA is tasked with spying on foreign nationals. The FBI is tasked with spying on US nationals. Everyone seems to be getting caught up with these legal technicalities. Our agencies spy on everyone they can (as probably does every spy agency in the world). Our government might not even be aware of or in control of it.
This is the hypocracy we all accept as OK. If citizens are barred from travelling internally we call it a human rights violation (USSR, China). If foreigners are barred from travelling between countries we call it "important reasons - immigration control". Same with spying, assasination, torture, killing civilians in war, etc. Human rights don't apply to non-citizens of just about any country.
Unfortunately we don't live in the world you imagine but I would join you in trying to improve the world we actually live in. I don't see how a trade and travel embargo could possibly help - it would almost certainly make things worse! Clearly there is no actual right to privacy under international law and rules vary greatly by country and are often weak in practice[1]. This is want we need to change either through treaties, constitutions or laws. I don't know where you live but in the US it would probably take a constitional amendment - a very difficult procedure - or a very broad decision by the Supreme Court - unlikely.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_law
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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
Tu quoque is basically the "but everyone does it" argument. I agree that'd be specious -- but I'm not saying that. Rather, I'm the poster's claims ("arrogant, self-righteous, disrespectful, ignorant, mendacious") -- particularly "arrogant" -- imply that he thought the US was doing something unique that other countries are above, and thus the US was deserving of special disdain. This implication is simply wrong. But he's building his whole argument on it.
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This is one of the few times that someone pointing out a fallacy on HN was apt.
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?
It would be interesting to see the technical details of how this was done.
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
Perhaps France wasn't your best choice of country.
> 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.
I think that, in today's world, everyone, particularly public people of interest to other countries, should reasonably expect to have foreign countries gather information about them, up to and including spying.
For example, if I was doing important security research, I would fully expect to have the Russians, Chinese, Israelis, etc, looking into my work.
I don't believe the US is exceptional. I expect other countries to have interests in US citizens and to carry out their interests to advance their national interest.
This expectation is entirely separate from my opinion of the morality of said act.
Every state privileges its own citizens. There are good reasons for doing so that have nothing to do with bigotry or exceptionalism.
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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."
You are correct - I overspecialized in my comment (and focused too much on the US, which attempts to separate domestic and foreign intelligence)- but I would argue that espionage is a signature of intelligence agencies and their efforts; expecting such agencies not to make significant espionage efforts doesn't really cohere with reality.
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?
Sure, who knows what the BND is up to.
Just a reminder:
"In an interview with Der Spiegel , Snowden claimed that the NSA provided German intelligence, with analysis tools to help the organisation monitor data flowing through Germany. “The NSA people are in bed together with the Germans,"” he told the magazine.
He added that the NSA’s foreign affairs directorate, which is responsible for relations with other countries, had set up a system whereby political leaders “could be insulated” from the backlash if spying became public and helped to play down how grievously they were “violating global privacy.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/nsa-in-bed-wi...
Sorry, I wasn't as clear as I wanted to be -- by "behaving this way," I had in mind the existence of government programs for surveillance and spying; not one-sided complaints on the part of citizens about such programs.
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Really ? How about :
German soldiers abroad (say, in Afghanistan). Do they respect foreign law ? Of course not. Non-EU residents on German soil are subject to summary arrest and deportation (it's more complex than this, I know, but as summaries go you could do worse) German social security treats citizens, residents and illegal aliens vastly differently German domestic wiretapping laws are basically that the executive gets to spy on anyone on German soil without judicial oversight AND outside of Germany. While it's of course true that this is not a distinction, it's actually worse than US law. German wiretapping laws do not let companies evaluate the legality of a wiretapping order before complying, unlike US law. Telecom companies operating in Germany are forced to provide the government with an automated system that can wiretap anyone on their networks without even their technicians knowing about who/what is being wiretapped. Needless to say, these systems are in constant use, and have been expanded. Small detail : in the US, the government will at least pay companies appropriately (handsomely even) for costs related to wiretapping. In Germany (like most of the EU) companies have to comply, fund it themselves, and can't even look at the orders. Non-compliance with this is punishable under criminal law (meaning the CEO, techies, field techs, or anyone in the telco can be arrested if the company refuses to comply) The BND does not just have the right to spy on anyone, but it can summarily arrest anyone, intervene in any investigation without question (so they could, for example, kill someone, then take over the investigation, no questions asked). They can confiscate any goods, on German soil and outside of it, without so much as an explanation. They aren't even the only government department in Germany that has this power, the tax office has the same power.
As an EU citizen myself, I find the EU's "anger" at US spying somewhere between moronic and hypocritical. Especially France's is beyond all comparison, knowing that they just physically arrested someone for refusing to store all records of his customer's transmissions for a full year, entirely on his own dime. Furthermore, both France and Germany have used the information they force ISPs to spy for them to enforce copyrights. Neither country has any qualms about sending all citizen's internet traffic to a private organisation that is not answerable to the government at all, and is not even attempting to enforce criminal law (the NSA is at least doing this to prevent real crime, like 9/11. Germany and France are transmitting everyone's internet usage to an organisation so it could sue them for copyright infringement in an automated fashion. There's just no comparison)
Note that furthermore, in the EU, these practices have been voted in by a non-democratically elected government (the EU commission). So the EU can't even claim that parliament approved these measures, because they didn't (barring a few exceptions). This has been imposed by people negotiating "international treaties".
Can anyone please explain to me why, if there's outrage about the NSA, why isn't there 10x the outrage about EU practices ? The way it is makes absolutely no sense.
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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.
I certainly don't wish to justify espionage. I'm saying that it's a reality of life today and has been for centuries, and the US is only one of many countries (perhaps not Belgium or the Netherlands) that are engaging in it. So the anger directed at the US should be directed at all the other countries engaging in espionage as well (and it is clear that there are many).
As for the US being allowed to get away with it, I do not have any simple prescriptions to offer the US government for replacing it with something better, although I too wish it did not engage in it.
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.
Yeah, but chancellor Merkel must be really pissed off with all the latest shenanigans [1] by her friends across the pond...
And everybody else must be really pissed off with the latest documents. Here's the punch line:
> Intercepting communications overseas has clear advantages for the NSA, with looser restrictions and less oversight. NSA documents about the effort refer directly to “full take,” “bulk access” and “high volume” operations on Yahoo and Google networks. Such large-scale collection of Internet content would be illegal in the United States, but the operations take place overseas, where the NSA is allowed to presume that anyone using a foreign data link is a foreigner.
[1] http://electrospaces.blogspot.nl/2013/10/how-nsa-targeted-ch...
[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-in...
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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.
>using political and economic power rather than pure force
Inconceivable!
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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.
People are not going to start hating Americans. They have already been hating Americans for hundreds of years. It started with the "degeneracy thesis" in the 18th century, where it had been suggested by European intellectuals that the American climate led to physically inferior animals and humans. The reasons for hating Americans change everyday.
Hating a group of people is a completely irrational, unconstructive approach to solving a problem. If one has anger about something, they shouldn't lash out at group of people.
If people want Americans to change something on their behalf, for their benefit, it needs to be from a standpoint of respect. They can start by asking nicely.
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> 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.
That's b/c most Americans are caught up in an endless cycle of work-aholism to either support their consumer-addiction and/or to climb out of debt and just pay the bills.
Related to that, I know this is somewhat menial, but I have found the site http://popvox.com to be fairly useful in this regard. Create an account, and you can track all current legislation -- a couple clicks will fire a stock letter to your rep either supporting or protesting a bill -- or you can edit the letter with a custom message (better). It is certainly a step above doing nothing and makes the task much easier.
With this argument, you're implicitly assuming responsibility for the misdeeds of your own government. It's easy to cast blame en masse, but it is not a constructive response.
>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.
Where did you get the idea the "vast majority of citizens support these initiatives"?
From the very start the polls have generally been against mass NSA surveillance except when the wording of the poll was misleading[1]. As more and more information has come out the polls have become more and more clearly against it[2].
Try to keep the facts straight.
Not sure why you refer to winner-take-all and how that concept could make everyone responsible. Keep in mind almost know one knew about this until very recently and we learned more even today.
[1] http://www.policymic.com/articles/53767/nsa-surveillance-sca...
[2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/polls-continue-show-ma...
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Part of Obama's campaign was an end to warrentless wiretaps. Now, if people were paying closer attention, then maybe they would have known better than to trust him (or indeed, any American politician), but I think it is quite a stretch to say that the people are to blame when a politician is less than honest.
Furthermore, the people who are to blame for our current political system are long dead. Everyone alive today was born into this framework and told to work within the framework to modify the framework. They have not had the opportunity to shape the framework free from the constraints of the framework. The facilities the framework provides to modify itself are clumsy, inadequate, and ineffective when everything is working smoothly.
This isn't a system we chose, this is a situation that we were born into, and find ourselves unable to change.
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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
I completely agree with your sentiment that no one is justified in thinking they are superior to anyone else. Furthermore, I have never said anything even remotely to the contrary.
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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.
If you are not angry at the GHCQ for tapping Google and Yahoo then I don't know what to tell you.
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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.
that was what I was referring to - leveraging the dollar's status of reserve currency. That's coming to an end for sure tho. Will laugh my ass off then at their ignorance.