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0 pointsanologwintermut12y ago0 comments

I have serious objections the the NSAs domestic spying and foreign surveillance of civilians in other countries. Unfortunately, like any major power, US foreign surveillance is not going to go away because 1) everyone else does it and 2) there's no way to verify that other countries have stopped even if they did.

If you read the history of arms control talks between the US and the USSR, the only reason they worked was because both parties could verify that the other was honoring the agreement. The Russians could physically look at satellite photos and verify the US actually removed some of its ICBMs and vice versa.

There is no way to verify a country is not spying on you. As such, no country, no matter their rhetoric, is going to actually give up that ability for the hope that others do so as well. It's a suckers bet.

The solution to privacy in the face of foreign dragnet surveillance is cryptography.

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2 comments · 2 top-level

oscargrouch12y ago

> The solution to privacy in the face of foreign dragnet surveillance is cryptography.

I agree with you on that.. of course defensive matters must come to aid this dragnet environment..

We cannot put the genie back in the bottle anymore,once he came out..

But,together with preventive and defensive measures, politically we must make our governments and rule makers to stand in favor of privacy, writing more severe laws against mass surveilance, that do not obey any court order for particular citizens....

Even if they lie, and they tell us they do so.. once we catch them lying, like right now, we can do something about it, in the political sphere.. their political position are defenseless

For instance, Companies in US right now need to fight politically over this, because even the economy is in danger..

So i think this is a battle that should be fight in two fronts.. If we pick just one of them, we will lost in the long term

unionpivo12y ago

> 1) everyone else does it

I am from Slovenia, our entire GDP is lower than what CIA and NSA get.

I am pretty sure that our government spying doesn't come even remotely close to what USA (and others in 5 eyes) does.

Maybe Russia and China have similar ambitions, nobody else comes close (France is probably envious, but their capabilities are limited).

So out of nearly 200 countries maybe half a dozen have similar programs. I would't call that everybody.

(Most other countries limit their spying to relevant local threats.)

PS: That doesn't mean that various spies in other countries don't have wet dreams about having similar capability to US, but that's all they have dreams.

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