NSA spied on EU

[Purple]

Are you fucking serious? This is what the NSA is supposed to do. Spy on other nations to gain the US an advantage. Where exactly is the cause for outrage?

The fact that they were so tactless to get caught. Seriously it's one thing to spy on allies. Everyone does that. And in the right circles everyone understands that everyone does that. But you don't just drop the ball like that and get revealed as the proles might not understand and get outraged.

[Thanas]

A few more details have come in.

Apparently the main focus of this program was Germany and the EU, with German calls being monitored 50 times as much as the French. The USA also has a tier system of allies - GB for example apparently is considered a second tier ally, whereas Germany is considered a third tier ally.

Not that surprising but I think the NSA is comically overestimating Germany's power and threat potential to the USA. I mean, 50 times as much resources spent on us than on the French?

[Ace Pace]

A few more details have come in.

Apparently the main focus of this program was Germany and the EU, with German calls being monitored 50 times as much as the French. The USA also has a tier system of allies - GB for example apparently is considered a second tier ally, whereas Germany is considered a third tier ally.

What the hell is a first tier ally if not the UK? A total client state like Israel?

Not that surprising but I think the NSA is comically overestimating Germany's power and threat potential to the USA. I mean, 50 times as much resources spent on us than on the French?

I think it's more that there is so much more to gain from understanding German politics and decision-making process than understanding the French one.

[General Zod]

America's just taking lessons from dear old dad.

(Reuters) - Germany's justice minister has written to two British ministers demanding to know to what extent a British spy agency targeted German citizens in a large-scale data trawling programme that has upset Berlin.

But Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman quickly dismissed talk of a rift between Britain and Germany and said he did not expect the issue to come up at a European Union summit this week when Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron will meet.

Based on leaks by fugitive former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden, the Guardian newspaper reported earlier this month that Britain's Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ) had tapped international telephone and Internet traffic on a massive scale in a programme codenamed "Tempora".

[Siege]

What the hell is a first tier ally if not the UK? A total client state like Israel?

I wouldn't be surprised to find out there are no first tier allies. Just like how the terror threat level never goes to "all is well with the world", ever. It's a brave new world we're living in!

[Starglider]

What the hell is a first tier ally if not the UK? A total client state like Israel?

My guess would be Canada, since they are in NORAD and NAFTA as well as NATO.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I seem to recall that France is quite high on the list of industrial espionage culprits. I would imagine they would spy on the Germans too...

[Simon_Jester]

A few more details have come in.

Apparently the main focus of this program was Germany and the EU, with German calls being monitored 50 times as much as the French. The USA also has a tier system of allies - GB for example apparently is considered a second tier ally, whereas Germany is considered a third tier ally.

Not that surprising but I think the NSA is comically overestimating Germany's power and threat potential to the USA. I mean, 50 times as much resources spent on us than on the French?

They may be using "monitoring in Germany" as a surrogate for monitoring policy shifts in the EU as they emerge, but it's still dumb.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Yes, Germany is probably regarded as the economic and political heart of the EU, with the EU forming something of a German tributary state, in the US way of thinking. I suspect 2nd-Tier status for the UK began under Obama, who is known for a borderline irrational dislike of the UK. I would also suspect that only Canada, Israel, and Japan qualify as First-Tier allies, though thanks to the Bush administration's massive engagement with eastern Europe, I wouldn't rule out Poland.

[WATCH-MAN]

Are you fucking serious? This is what the NSA is supposed to do. Spy on other nations to gain the US an advantage. Where exactly is the cause for outrage?

Do you honestly not think that everyone is trying to spy on everyone else to gain an upper hand in every field of international relations?

Are you really that naive?

For that matter, spying on other nations, even friendly nations, isn't just something the US does.

This may not be nice, but it's nothing new.

Literally every nation in NATO attempts to spy on the others. This is nothing new for ANYONE. Cry about it.

Typical for the USA.

And for Germany. And France. And Russia. And Israel. And England. And any other nation on earth with an intelligence agency. But I suppose that since the USA does it too, than we must be evil.

The only offense the NSA committed here was the capital one in espionage: Do Not Get Caught.

Everybody knows the other guy is doing it. Any politician claiming otherwise is either so naive as to not belong in politics, or lying (Lying. They're lying.). But now people are making a fuss about it, because the dirty little secret of international relations is out on the street, for everybody to see, and you get to score points with this with your electorate. That, and it's kinda fun to rag on the USA after they've been so hardassed about China's hacking attempts.

I actually expect nations to spy on each other. It's been going on since forever. I wouldn't be at all surprised and I expect such attempts are made on a regular basis. I'd be disappointed that our side wasn't more effective in keeping our secrets.

This sort of thing is also why codes are still used when sending messages, and some communications are still done on paper rather than hackable e-format or buggable phone lines.

Seriously, people don't realize that nations spy on each other routinely? Even allies spy on each other, and always have.

And to everyone who just dismissed the outrage because this is 'normal': imagine if EU countries bugged the Oval Office and hacked into the White House e-mail network. Would you be outraged or not?

I'd actually be shocked if most of them hadn't tried, at least once, to bug the White House and/or infiltrate the White House or DoD networks.

And to everyone who just dismissed the outrage because this is 'normal': imagine if EU countries bugged the Oval Office and hacked into the White House e-mail network. Would you be outraged or not?

I'd be outraged if they were able to not outraged at them for trying. This may come as a huge shock to you, but countries, even allies, spy on each other. Always have, always will.

Are you fucking serious? This is what the NSA is supposed to do. Spy on other nations to gain the US an advantage. Where exactly is the cause for outrage?

The fact that they were so tactless to get caught. Seriously it's one thing to spy on allies. Everyone does that. And in the right circles everyone understands that everyone does that. But you don't just drop the ball like that and get revealed as the proles might not understand and get outraged.

I think it is disturbing how many of you are defending the actions of the USA with a tu quoque fallacy - not even noticing that there is a difference between classical spying on officials (government, military etc.) of a nation and spying on everyone without exception and without any concrete reason.

Yes, other nations may have tried to bug the Oval Office and hack into the White House e-mail network.

But the Oval Office and the White House e-mail network are legitimate espionage goals -the homes of innocent civilians are not.

Even the law of war knows to differentiate between legitimate goals and illegitimate goals.

I know: There is no such law for espionage.

But espionage is still an act of an state and has to observe general principles of law - as the state itself has to observe general principles of law - even those which are not written down.

[Simon_Jester]

Yes, Germany is probably regarded as the economic and political heart of the EU, with the EU forming something of a German tributary state, in the US way of thinking.

And honestly this just goes to show how paranoid and nuts and possessive the US security state can get.

I swear, it's like the Cold War slow-poisoned us...

[Broomstick]

Well, maybe, but arguably the US government's policies towards other nations have always been a bit whack.

[Zaune]

I suspect 2nd-Tier status for the UK began under Obama, who is known for a borderline irrational dislike of the UK.

Given that the first British Prime Minister he ever met was David Cameron, you can't really blame him.

[TimothyC]

I suspect 2nd-Tier status for the UK began under Obama, who is known for a borderline irrational dislike of the UK.

Given that the first British Prime Minister he ever met was David Cameron, you can't really blame him.

Actually, the first PM he met with was Brown, not Cameron, and he made a diplomatic insult (seriously, look it something to the effect of "Gordon Brown DVD Obama Resolute").

The only justification I've ever heard for the dislike of the UK from the current president is the slightly nutty idea that he's pissed at how the Brits treated daddy in Kenya (an idea that feeds off of the image of the President as a Chicago politician who is willing to punish people he doesn't like). I am expressly not saying that I subscribe to this idea, but I'd like to hear something other than "He just does."

[Zaune]

Oh, fair enough. He was overheard making a rather unkind remark about David Cameron after their encounter, though.

And personally, I think an assortment of DVDs is a sight more useful than -let's face it- some objet d'art or historical curiosity that's going to end up decorating a little-used room in a government building somewhere, but that's just me.

[Losonti Tokash]

I have literally never heard anyone saying Obama hates the UK except right wingers desperate for any scandal they can find.

[Terralthra]

Oh, fair enough. He was overheard making a rather unkind remark about David Cameron after their encounter, though.

And personally, I think an assortment of DVDs is a sight more useful than -let's face it- some objet d'art or historical curiosity that's going to end up decorating a little-used room in a government building somewhere, but that's just me.

The "diplomatic insult" was that the DVDs gifted were Region 1 (US) DVDs, and thus could not be played on EU (Region 2) players. It's of course a trumped-up "insult" that is easily explained as entirely innocuous.

[Tiriol]

Yes, Germany is probably regarded as the economic and political heart of the EU, with the EU forming something of a German tributary state, in the US way of thinking.

And honestly this just goes to show how paranoid and nuts and possessive the US security state can get.

I swear, it's like the Cold War slow-poisoned us...

That might not be far from the truth. I suspect that the US intelligence and security services are still engaged in the same way of thinking and the same ideology as during the Cold War. Maybe it's because of institutional inertia and laziness to change; maybe because they actually need Cold War -type situation to justify some parts of their existence. And the populace are willing to go along simply out of herd mentality.

The US isn't alone, though, in that it (might; this is all something I've cooked up) be stuck in the past. On so many levels just about all nations do so, from Finland to Germany and from China to Japan and Israel. It's just that the US has the money and the power to be really dick about their situation.

[Kane Starkiller]

More details from spiegel article.
The article is too long to quote here but there is a part that sheds more light on "2nd tier" allies mentioned in the thread:

No one is safe from this mass spying -- at least almost no one. Only one handpicked group of nations is excluded -- countries that the NSA has defined as close friends, or "2nd party," as one internal document indicates. They include the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. A document classified as "top secret" states that, "The NSA does NOT target its 2nd party partners, nor request that 2nd parties do anything that is inherently illegal for NSA to do."

The term is "2nd party" (US being 1st presumably) and includes UK,Canada,Australia and New Zealand which, according to documents, are not being spied upon.
This is not really surprising UKUSA countries were extremely close allies ever since WW2.

[Simon_Jester]

For anyone out there who doesn't see the problem with this whole practice of indiscriminate spying, and there are quite a few...

Think back to, say, 1970. Imagine that the KGB found a way to read the mail of all American citizens at that time. What would be the US government's reaction? I don't know, but it'd be dramatic. The potential for blackmail alone would be staggering, if you had that much information about people's private lives.

Today, right this moment, even having a database with everyone's email on it won't give the NSA that kind of power. There aren't enough spies to read the data and trawl it for incriminating information. But I would bet money that if we could look at their actual long range planning documents*... We'd find that they are actively looking to automate this process of searching that massive database. Within another 10-20 years, they might be able to use this kind of data (including what they now have archived) to automatically blackmail whatever foreigners they wish to target.
_______________________________

*That's half the problem right there. The US makes the long range objectives and strategy of these organizations secret, to the point where they are never subject to democratic review, unless the security organs screw up badly enough that it becomes a scandal.

[K. A. Pital]

Text pipe processors have been used by news agencies already very efficiently to just mine raw data and automatically, without humans, compose articles that contain only relevant information.

How hard it would be to set up a similar machine at NSA and how do you even know this machine isn't working there _right now_, turning terabytes of accumulated raw data into precise reports that could be used to attack anyone, anywhere?

Seriously - just let the machine use Google to find out the names of the largest corporations, their shareholders, management, everything. Same for governments. Then just imagine what they could already do with that.

Are we so sure Ecuador's economy will keep doing fine if they shelter Snowden? There's a myriad ways to crush them if you have this type of data. You can selectively ruin the lives of politicians, blackmail enterprise administrators, blackmail entire organizations or select untrustworthy individuals who can be bribed to actually sabotage the nation. From the e-mail correspondence of a bribe-eager official you could gather that he can be bought a lot easier than just trying to bribe people in the government with a trial-and-error method relying on word of mouth. You can find out their addresses, their houses, everything, their family members who might be overseas.

Of course it is wrong for the NSA, an agency beholden to no one essentially, to have this power. That's it. And don't give me that "they answer directly to the president" bullshit, those presidents are wiretappers, torturers and wannabe dictators. Answering to them is like answering to a person who is about as evil as the NSA itself.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

More details from spiegel article.
The article is too long to quote here but there is a part that sheds more light on "2nd tier" allies mentioned in the thread:

No one is safe from this mass spying -- at least almost no one. Only one handpicked group of nations is excluded -- countries that the NSA has defined as close friends, or "2nd party," as one internal document indicates. They include the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. A document classified as "top secret" states that, "The NSA does NOT target its 2nd party partners, nor request that 2nd parties do anything that is inherently illegal for NSA to do."

The term is "2nd party" (US being 1st presumably) and includes UK,Canada,Australia and New Zealand which, according to documents, are not being spied upon.
This is not really surprising UKUSA countries were extremely close allies ever since WW2.

From what I read, the UK and USA only had extremely good relations on the surface. The truth was Churchill was increasingly sidelined towards the end of the war, General Montgomery's antics notwithstanding.

[Broomstick]

The term is "2nd party" (US being 1st presumably) and includes UK,Canada,Australia and New Zealand which, according to documents, are not being spied upon.

I don't believe that for a second. Hell, different parts of the US government have been known to spy on each other. It's just a different sort of spying, or slightly less spying.

[Mr Bean]

The term is "2nd party" (US being 1st presumably) and includes UK,Canada,Australia and New Zealand which, according to documents, are not being spied upon.

I don't believe that for a second. Hell, different parts of the US government have been known to spy on each other. It's just a different sort of spying, or slightly less spying.

I disagree with you there. We don't spy on the UK because we share a great deal. To many back channels to many close connections because of the Cold War to hide any serious spying for long. Most of what does go on is simple information exchange. We each know exactly who to talk to to find out what's going on in each other countries if not quickly then always reliably, we would never dream of arresting our respective agents so it's polite as can be.

Likewise New Zealand whom I've always heard never bothers to hide anything from us. And we don't hide much from them, but then NZ is not exactly interested in us to begin with except as it relates to their neighbors. I am suprised to see Canada and Australia on those lists however as I figure politically we want to spy on the opposition there as unlike the UK there is some question on if we can call up and demand troops from them at will.

[Ace Pace]

And Obama says what I think is perfectly correct, everybody spies.

Obama said he needed more information on the specific programs cited in the Der Spiegel report, but made clear such spying was commonplace.

"I guarantee you that in European capitals, there are people who are interested in, if not what I had for breakfast, at least what my talking points might be should I end up meeting with their leaders," Obama said. "That is how intelligence services operate."

Intel services don't just care about whether a terrorist is planning something specific, their mission is to help national interests. This may mean spying on allies to understand motives on trade negotiations, it can mean getting inside the head of say, certain prime ministers around the world.


Far more amusing is the Russian statement, basically, the leaks are exposing something every single nation would rather keep under the rugs. The German security services are most likely attempting (or, more likely, succeeded) in doing similar wire taps to the U.S. mission in Germany.

If he (Snowden) wants to remain here there is one condition - he should stop his work aimed at inflicting damage on our American partners no matter how strange this may sound coming from me.