I think the biggest scandal that isn't discussed often enough (in the US) is not spying on foreign government officials for legitimate security-related reasons (e.g. this), it is spying on foreign government officials to give the US an advantage in trade negotiations or worse passing on "tips" to US-based private companies so they can gain an advantage during negotiations/bidding.
The US constantly beats the capitalism drum, and that's fine. But it seem hypocritical to beat the capitalism drum with one hand, while with the other quietly subverting capitalism by giving certain favored entities tips and advantages.
Even people in the US should be asking why large US corporations are given these tips/advantages/etc while small-medium US businesses are not. Let alone the immorality of helping a US company win against a foreign one due to state supplied corporate espionage.
The justification "well China does it!!1!" while true, is just kind of pathetic. China does a lot of things, doesn't make it right for a country that claims it is the beacon is capitalism and democracy to do the same.
For many of us, "capitalism" involves precisely this -- the wealthy using their wealth and power to cement their position.
That's not capitalism at all. That's just corruption / cronyism and it can live "on top of" any economic system.
But let me ask you this: Why is the government helping large corporations to cheat more than small or medium companies? Even if we decide cheating is acceptable, shouldn't everyone be on an even footing in terms of this type of help?
Seems like the ultimate result is the big get bigger while the small get smaller.
>But it seem hypocritical to beat the capitalism drum with one hand, while with the other quietly subverting capitalism by giving certain favored entities tips and advantages.
Do you have any sources for this? I am genuinely curious.
If there was anything in any of the leaked Snowden slides detailing any US companies they give info to that would be greatly appreciated.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/20/us-boeing-brazil-i...
"Snowden's documents, many of which were published by Brazil-based U.S. journalist Glenn Greenwald, revealed that Washington had spied on Rousseff's personal communications, those of state-run oil company Petrobras - which Rousseff once chaired - and countless Brazilian citizens".
Capitalism is a regulatory and economic framework that allows for the private ownership of capital and assets and is driven by selfish profit motives.
In a purely capitalistic system, we wouldn't even have a government to redistribute wealth and provide oversight, or in this case - to spy on other countries and provide information to a few select corporations. The socialistic thing for the government to do would be to distribute these secrets evenly among all US businesses.
So government favoring big business is actually another triumph of capitalism.
It's not a super friendly close relationship like you might have with a sibling or your lifelong best friend. But it's "I know you're not doing anything bad. You know I'm not doing anything bad. So until one of us does something bad, we can 'trust' each other and continue business like usual."
(And, really, why would the US government and its agency trust some Germans overseas, when it doesn't trust its own people at home?)
What we shouldn't do is spy on American citizens within our borders as a routine practice.
Not enthused about this leak.
If you abscond with 1,000 legitimate mission-oriented documents for every 1 document you leak that pertains to something you think an agency shouldn't be doing, are you still blowing the whistle? At what point are you no longer able to use that title as a defense? 10,000 documents for every 1? 100,000? Can he be both a whistleblower and a criminal or are the two mutually exclusive?
I don't have answers to these questions so I hope someone else does.
Try not to downvote for simply disagreeing with the question, as though it were even possible to disagree with a question.
It would be a legitimate option for the NSA to intentionally "leak" documents that simply describe their mission, causing a false spectacle. It will not hurt them much, given it's well within their mission parameters, but CAN hurt Snowden through public backlash. It would raise such questions as, "is Snowden still a whistleblower?" Such releases could hurt his credibility, or even flood the news with insignificant stories such that the truly important ones are lost in the shuffle.
I am not certain this is what we're seeing, but neither would I be surprised if it were true.
EDIT: There have been documents leaked about how the CIA and IC use character assassination to advance their causes. There have also been articles explicitly about the character assassination of Snowden: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2014/06/12522/glenn-greenwald-sp... http://www.securitycurrent.com/en/writers/richard-stiennon/t...
There are more important concerns and loyalties than those we have for individual countries. If he is revealing how US spies friendly nations, he is serving greater good. His document leak to journalists seem to avoid information of NSA spying Russia or China.
There's a lot of docs that are useful for laypeople to improve their privacy, and then there's the ones that are going to do nothing but damage the spying capability of US intelligence agencies against nation-state adversaries.
If his sole goal was to damage the spying capability of US intelligence agencies, then he was a mole, not a whistle blower.
The notion of whether Snowden as a person is a whistleblower is a partisan rhetorical trick --- employed by both "sides" of the debate --- used to distract people from his actual actions.
You are asking the question same way Fox News asks if we should just nuke middle east. It not a question, its your opinion, as valid and proper as rape jokes(another Fox News special).
Everybody makes mistakes, and it is reasonable to assume that someone trying to bring documents out of a state agency so the people can see them isn't going to have the luxury of time. This attitude that a whistleblower is somehow supposed to be perfect is suspicious; attempting to seed the meme that Snowden was anything other than a whistleblower, while diverting attention yet again from the crimes of a rogue intelligence agency.
I'm sure there were documents in the Pentagon Papers which probably shouldn't have been made public, too. Looking back, was that relevant to the larger cause of informing the public about the Vietnam war's lies?
Instead of coordinating with the people that they share so much other more sensitive info with they stole it. That is where I see a problem.
How would the NSA know the Germans didn't lie? I don't think this is a big issue. If you're a spy, expect to be spied upon.
probably not
Lots of people saying either "good, this is their job" and "old news"-- shill trademark phrases. I'm not making any accusations exactly, but I am concerned at the mass of simple, positive, and vapid comments in this thread.
I never dismiss the possibility of JTRIG-style disinformation or the far more common problem of people that have to argue a certain way because their salary depends on that point of view.
That said, I suggest considering Jacob Appelbaum's interpretation[1] of the "not surprised" dismissal: it' s a coping mechanism. It's an expression of frustration about not being able to do anything about the problem. The bigger question is if the phrase is being used to shut down discussion? Or can we acknowledge that frustration and try to find some way past it. It's difficult to care about a cause if you don't see even a theoretical way for the cause to succeed.
A particularly effective weapon is convincing your opponents that they cannot win. I suggest that the "cannot win" scenario only happens if we let it happen( by adopting a nihilistic, defeatist attitude.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9Xw3z-8oP4#t=594
(I recommend watching the entire talk - especially the question from someone in the NSA (!) at the end)
I ask both on principle and because the quality of discussion is noticeably damaged by having to wade through many questionably real comments before finding actual discussion.
And of course it's not just the Americans doing this, undoubtedly the Russians/Chinese etc do something similar.
Not only that, they are completely missing Snowdens point. Which is that US intelligence are out of control and has become self-serving to the point of hurting US interests and principles.
Dismissing people as shills just because they disagree with you is incredibly arrogant.
I live in Germany and I hope that there won't be any global war. But currently the policits between countries getting stranger and stranger. Mostly due to the governements. Shouldn't they suppose to work for freedom and not war?
I mean I think even germany will send weapons to bad behaved countries (americans aswell), just for the money, who cares about weapon embargos?! Money is all and the fact that so many people care so much about Money and some kind of 'status' inside their culture makes things really really worse.
I hope that I can live in peace until I die. Hopefully.
Here's an interesting take on that[1][2][3].
Father: You're gonna make the world safe for democracy!
Joe Age 10: What is democracy?
Father: Well it's never bright clear on myself.
Like any other kind government it's got something
to do with young men killing each other I believe.
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun_(film)
But seriously, is this not what the NSA is paid to do?
So... I think it's up to the German Minister of Security to say they are shocked, shocked that the USA is spying on the people Germany uses to spy on the US.
> Spying on other spying agencies seems like 100% fair game
> This is legitimate activity for the NSA
> I'd be pretty angry at NSA for being incompetent if they didn't spy on foreign intelligence agencies.
Correct. This is what spy agencies do. Edward Snowden is an American Hero, and it is a shame what has happened beyond the obvious. His name is invoked for shock headlines, and at this point there is almost no reaction to these disclosures and that is worrying. If there was a way to lower the power distance between "Government Actors" and citizens, we could expend resources cooperatively instead of competitively.
Until then, there will be numerous government agencies AND companies, on many continents and countries, building systems to collect and analyze your data creating a single point of failure. That sounds counter intuitive, but if we assume all of your data is essentially uniform and the Chinese/NSA/BND etc. all have essentially the same data. If even one of those places has a breach event, your data will be in the hands of bad individual actors. This leaves aside, that the data is already in the hands of questionable players.
To conclude, the Snowden docs were illuminating but no longer hold the shock they once did. Not much has changed. The initial disclosure confirmed for a lot of us what we already knew, and publicized it to those who didn't. The ongoing disclosures are marginal now and really a function of leveraging Snowden's name for ad-traffic. Hopefully, going forward there will be a framework for protecting privacy that regular, everyday people can easily use. Until then, these disclosures are just a disheartening reminder of the inability to seperate gov. tyranny from legitimate activity.
[0]Snowden is living in an undisclosed location in Russia, a country hostile to the US, and barred from entering America without being tried for treason. Disappointing.
Stop the presses!
Counterterrorism and such, which has the slippery slope to spying on private citizens, is completely secondary at best.
Imagine the reaction on the far right here in America to a news report that Russia, Germany or France spies on American intelligence agencies. It's natural that such things should happen, but its also certain to create discord among certain factions here in America.