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On October 25 2013 12:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
I'm fine with spying, on even allies. I don't like pissing off allies though. So unless that info is super awesome, we should probably back off a bit.
I don't like to do the "omg but what if this imagined thing was true", but... What if the public response from Germany is "pissed off" just to appease the public back home: "Guys, we're rattling our shields at USA for spying on us--don't worry, we care about that stuff greatly, they're a bunch of sketchy ass holes", but then on the horn with Obama: "it's chill, we sorta know that kinda stuff is going on anyway, and hell, it took you weeks to figure out we had a microphone hidden in your underpants, so we're good. Just don't get caught or we'll have to pretend like we're all mad at you again"
Nah, probably not. In any case I wouldn't be surprised if it would take much, much more than the revelation of basic intelligence activities to damage any relations severely.
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I think it's silly to distinguish between spying on Americans and spying on Germans. Both are bad.
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
On October 25 2013 12:19 furymonkey wrote:
The only reason Merkel is complaining is just for show, for the EU and German populace. Politicians have to pretend outrageous to better connect with their voters, even though most of them know this is the norm, unfortunately this happened to be in the media spot light.
If Merkel's phone can be earsdropped by its allies, it can and surely is by less friendly countries, such as Russia. This is to be expected by government officials or their nation intelligent advisers.
Of course Merkel has to respond to the German populace. That is why this whole situation is bad in the first place and it's the point that I've been stressing. As long as public sentiment is aimed towards America, Merkel cannot afford to just bend over and do America whatever favors.
And no, I don't believe it is the norm to tap the phones of foreign leaders. It may be the norm for America, but I sure as hell don't think Obama's conversations are all being leaked to Russia, and I highly doubt Sweden is listening in on Obama. Unless you can prove otherwise that's just a really far-reaching claim.
Nah, probably not. In any case I wouldn't be surprised if it would take much, much more than the revelation of basic intelligence activities to damage any relations severely.
I don't believe relations will be damaged severely, but it could eventually lead to something much worse considering all we've done in the past and recent times.
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Whether or not Obama is getting earsdropped is not the point, and I highly doubt it's easy to do it to the number 1 spending country in the world anyway.
But if you give the ability, and resources to whichever country, such as Germany or Sweden, do you expect them to lock it away and not use it? Especially if you can get away with it.
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On October 25 2013 12:22 IgnE wrote:
I think it's silly to distinguish between spying on Americans and spying on Germans. Both are bad.
The distinction is important if you're a non-american, though. We don't get to vote in the US elections  .
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On October 25 2013 11:50 KwarK wrote:
I dunno. I'm not sure Bush would have done this shit to Blair.
Bush? Sure, though I'm not as confident about Rumfeld and Rice
The sole focus on Obama is interesting seems considering...The NSA memo seen by the Guardian was written halfway through George W Bush's second term, when Condoleezza Rice was secretary of state and Donald Rumsfeld was in his final months as defence secretary.
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
On October 25 2013 12:55 furymonkey wrote:
Whether or not Obama is getting earsdropped is not the point, and I highly doubt it's easy to do it to the number 1 spending country in the world anyway.
But if you give the ability, and resources to whichever country, such as Germany or Sweden, do you expect them to lock it away and not use it? Especially if you can get away with it.
Let's not deal with hypotheticals please. I'm sure everyone would love a chance to eavesdrop on everyone else, but the problem here is actually doing it (and getting caught).
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On October 25 2013 11:40 Roe wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2013 11:33 xDaunt wrote:
The problem isn't just that Obama was caught spying or that he was caught spying on allies. The problem is that this scandal has emerged when Obama already is in the doghouse with all of these countries for his previous foreign policy boondoggles. It's a cumulative problem, because Obama does not have any good will to spend. The problem isn't obama, it's the united states.
Thank you very much.
And of course xDaunt for bringing the Republican's side of the story. Insightful as always.
On October 25 2013 11:50 KwarK wrote:
I dunno. I'm not sure Bush would have done this shit to Blair.
That's probably because he willingly gave away all the UK's secrets as the US of A's bestest controllable lapdog possible.
Nobody would expect the USA to do shit like that. China? Sure, they are evil commies. Russia? Ditto, but a bit less asian.
But not the knight in shining armor, defender of Freedom 'n' stuff. And to a country whose soldiers fought and died alongside your own in pointless conflicts like Afghanistan. Not just shitting on privacy of their own citizens and people around the world, but hitting the souvereignty of one of their most (apparently not so much) trusted (after all) allies where it actually hurts. One can only say "Bravo".
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On October 25 2013 13:31 Doublemint wrote:
But not the knight in shining armor, defender of Freedom 'n' stuff. And to a country whose soldiers fought and died alongside your own in pointless conflicts like Afghanistan. Not just shitting on privacy of their own citizens and people around the world, but hitting the souvereignty of one of their most (apparently not so much) trusted (after all) allies where it actually hurts. One can only say "Bravo".
This is from like 10 years ago but,
Why do allies need to spy on each other? Can't they just pick up the phone and ask each other what's going on? Sometimes, yes; but sometimes, no.
Many allies enjoy a formal "intelligence liaison." They share, trade, or consolidate assets and findings. During the Cold War, the nations of NATO had such arrangements. U.S.-Israeli relations were solidified after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when Israel supplied the CIA with a massive cache of Soviet military hardware: tanks, fighting vehicles, artillery pieces, and so forth.
Yet there are times when allies don't want to share. Consider the following situation: Countries A and B are allies. Countries B and C are friends or, at least, trading partners. Countries A and C are enemies. Country A might want to spy on its ally B in order to learn things about its enemy C.
The world is teeming with such relations.
The most notorious instance involved, again, Israel: the case of Jonathan Pollard. Pollard is serving a life sentence for leaking extremely classified information to Israel in the 1980s. The U.S. government has never revealed just what Pollard leaked, but Seymour Hersh offered a summary five years ago in The New Yorker. Intelligence officials gave Hersh a rundown because President Bill Clinton had promised right-wing Jewish groups—who were lobbying for Pollard's release—that he would at least look into the case, and the intel officials were worried that Clinton might succumb to the pressure. To pre-empt such a move, they told Hersh just how serious Pollard's indiscretions were. If Hersh's report is true (and his sources on these matters tend to be excellent), the indiscretions were as serious as they can get: technical features of U.S. photo-reconnaissance satellites, operations of nuclear-missile submarines, details of the Strategic Air Command's nuclear-war plan. Officers also told Hersh that the Israeli government had passed on some of these secrets to the Soviet Union in exchange for a more relaxed policy toward Jewish emigration.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2004/09/the_friendly_spook.html
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On October 25 2013 13:38 FallDownMarigold wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2013 13:31 Doublemint wrote:
But not the knight in shining armor, defender of Freedom 'n' stuff. And to a country whose soldiers fought and died alongside your own in pointless conflicts like Afghanistan. Not just shitting on privacy of their own citizens and people around the world, but hitting the souvereignty of one of their most (apparently not so much) trusted (after all) allies where it actually hurts. One can only say "Bravo".
This is from like 10 years ago but, Show nested quote +
Why do allies need to spy on each other? Can't they just pick up the phone and ask each other what's going on? Sometimes, yes; but sometimes, no.
Many allies enjoy a formal "intelligence liaison." They share, trade, or consolidate assets and findings. During the Cold War, the nations of NATO had such arrangements. U.S.-Israeli relations were solidified after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when Israel supplied the CIA with a massive cache of Soviet military hardware: tanks, fighting vehicles, artillery pieces, and so forth.
Yet there are times when allies don't want to share. Consider the following situation: Countries A and B are allies. Countries B and C are friends or, at least, trading partners. Countries A and C are enemies. Country A might want to spy on its ally B in order to learn things about its enemy C.
The world is teeming with such relations.
The most notorious instance involved, again, Israel: the case of Jonathan Pollard. Pollard is serving a life sentence for leaking extremely classified information to Israel in the 1980s. The U.S. government has never revealed just what Pollard leaked, but Seymour Hersh offered a summary five years ago in The New Yorker. Intelligence officials gave Hersh a rundown because President Bill Clinton had promised right-wing Jewish groups—who were lobbying for Pollard's release—that he would at least look into the case, and the intel officials were worried that Clinton might succumb to the pressure. To pre-empt such a move, they told Hersh just how serious Pollard's indiscretions were. If Hersh's report is true (and his sources on these matters tend to be excellent), the indiscretions were as serious as they can get: technical features of U.S. photo-reconnaissance satellites, operations of nuclear-missile submarines, details of the Strategic Air Command's nuclear-war plan. Officers also told Hersh that the Israeli government had passed on some of these secrets to the Soviet Union in exchange for a more relaxed policy toward Jewish emigration.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2004/09/the_friendly_spook.html
Sorry, my sense of timing could be off. German casualties in 2013 Or not.
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On October 25 2013 12:02 furymonkey wrote:
Every major country spy on everyone, but most don't have the U.S. technology or financial resources $10.8 billion for fiscal 2013, according to a budget document Snowden leaked.
I really don't think budget or tech has anything to do with it. I'm sure all of this internet age spying is delightfully cheap and easy for people like the NSA. I bet the lowest paid intern could hack Merkels phone.
In the end they are doing it just because they had the ability and don't fear repercussions. It's all about power and leverage (and the abuse of it).
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On October 25 2013 13:49 DannyJ wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2013 12:02 furymonkey wrote:
Every major country spy on everyone, but most don't have the U.S. technology or financial resources $10.8 billion for fiscal 2013, according to a budget document Snowden leaked. I really don't think budget or tech has anything to do with it. I'm sure all of this internet age spying is delightfully cheap and easy for people like the NSA. I bet the lowest paid intern could hack Merkels phone. In the end they are doing it just because they had the ability and don't fear repercussions. It's all about power and leverage (and the abuse of it).
Apparently even the lowest paid and highly qualified intern makes good money in a government agency, that officially receives $11 billion. Delightfully cheap. For realz.
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On October 25 2013 11:04 FallDownMarigold wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2013 08:23 DoubleReed wrote:
My point is that the actual problem is that we make everything super secret. If we had policies about being more open and honest about espionage, then we wouldn't do stupid shit like spying on the german president. It's part of a larger problem of secrecy.
If we all agree spying is inevitable, then what's the big deal?
I mean if we said openly that we hack into the Chinese government, and even their corporations to get unfair information for our corporations, would that be so terrible? Would the sky fall? Would China change anything that they do? What, would they do some hypocritical bitching about it?
Maybe Americans would be uncomfortable with that use of government resources, but they might not. They're doing the same to us, after all. Either way, that seems like something that we should decide as a society. But we can't do that unless it's public information. It's not just domestic spying that should be public. This is an interesting and different opinion about the nature of successful intelligence. I don't think the idea of moving away from secrecy is such a good idea, though, given that secrecy is absolutely crucial to intelligence: Show nested quote +Definition 1: Intelligence is secret state or group activity to understand or influence foreign or domestic entities.
Definition 2: Intelligence analysis is the application of individual and collective cognitive methods to weigh data and test hypotheses within a secret socio-cultural context.
Definition 3: Intelligence errors are factual inaccuracies in analysis resulting from poor or missing data; intelligence failure is systemic organizational surprise resulting from incorrect, missing, discarded, or inadequate hypotheses. Secrecy is important to the very nature of intelligence, so it seems strange to me to suggest removing the element of secrecy from it. In fact it seems a bit misunderstood given this information: Show nested quote +Furthermore, Shulsky explains, these activities are conducted by organizations and those organizations have something in common: they have as one of their "most notable characteristics...the secrecy with which their activities are conducted". Secrecy is essential because intelligence is part of the ongoing 'struggle' between nations. Shulsky thus emphasizes the need for secrecy in intelligence activities and organizations. Indeed, he comes close to calling secrecy a constitutive element of intelligence work, saying the "connection between intelligence and secrecy is central to most of what distinguishes intelligence from other intellectual activities." Show nested quote +In 1958 a CIA operations officer noticed the same tendency that puzzled Shulsky. Rather than setting it aside, however, he attempted to explain it. Writing under the pen-name R. A. Random in the CIA's then classified Studies in Intelligence, he suggested that intelligence, by definition, always has something secret about it: "Intelligence is the official, secret collection and processing of information on foreign countries to aid in formulating and implementing foreign policy, and the conduct of covert activities abroad to facilitate the implementation of foreign policy". Show nested quote +...the addition of "counterintelligence" hints that Bimfort has missed one of the essential elements of Random's definition: its assertion that intelligence is a state activity that involves secrecy. If Bimfort had grasped that point, he should have conceded that an activity that is official and secret ipso facto implies subsidiary activities to keep it secret. Thus Bimfort's addition--"the protection of both process and product, as as persons and organizations concerned with these, against unauthorized disclosure"--is not only ponderous, it is superfluous. It is, moreover, unhelpful, because it reaches beyond counterintelligence and subsumes all sorts of ordinary security functions common to many government offices and private enterprises. Michael Warner, “Wanted: A Definition of ‘Intelligence’,” Studies in Intelligence 46, no. 3 (2002): 15–22. https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol46no3/pdf/v46i3a02p.pdfNow, this doesn't address whether it's good or bad to conduct intelligence activities on allied and friendly nations, but it does suggest that recommending the removal of secrecy from intelligence is, by definition, silly.
I'm not saying that there is no classified information. Hell, we can classify methods and the actual information we get from it. That's fine. What I'm saying is that we should be open about what we're doing, to what extent that we're doing it, and why we're doing it.
If we care about security, and supposedly we do, then we want to encourage a more open discussion. We want to recognize that espionage, even against allies, is a fact of life and is going to occur. That's what is good for security. Real security isn't about secrets. Real security is when everyone knows how something works and still can't succeed. Real security is actually quite democratic.
You want silly? I give you spy-catching gerbils!
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What I don't like at all is the impression this whole situation conveys. Our soldiers die alongside US troops and it feels like you get the same respect and treatment as China, Syria or Russia. Way to treat a partner. Burning diplomatic bridges is dangerous and pretty stupid from a security and economic point of view.
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2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
Switching the topic, but I am once again flabbergasted at how these guys accept interviews from the Daily Show when it's obvious they're gonna get trolled and have all their dumb comments aired.
Conservative activist Don Yelton has stepped down from his position as Republican precinct chairman of Buncombe County, N.C., following controversial comments that aired Wednesday on the Daily Show. The remarks were made during an interview with Daily Show correspondent Aasif Mandvi, during which Mandvi and Yelton discussed efforts to pass new voter identification requirements into in North Carolina, a requirement that many critics argue will subdue voter turnout in the state. “The law is going to kick the Democrats in the butt,” Yelton said. “If it hurts a bunch of college kids [that are] too lazy to get up off their bohonkas and go get a photo ID, so be it. If it hurts a bunch of whites, so be it.” Yelton also made a series of racially incendiary remarks to Mandvi as they discussed the law. “If it hurts a bunch of lazy blacks that want the government to give them everything, so be it,” Yelton added. Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/nc-gop-official-resigns-after-interview-98822.html?hp=l2
Though, I guess in this case, no trolling was necessary. >_>
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On October 25 2013 12:19 FallDownMarigold wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2013 12:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
I'm fine with spying, on even allies. I don't like pissing off allies though. So unless that info is super awesome, we should probably back off a bit. I don't like to do the "omg but what if this imagined thing was true", but... What if the public response from Germany is "pissed off" just to appease the public back home: "Guys, we're rattling our shields at USA for spying on us--don't worry, we care about that stuff greatly, they're a bunch of sketchy ass holes", but then on the horn with Obama: "it's chill, we sorta know that kinda stuff is going on anyway, and hell, it took you weeks to figure out we had a microphone hidden in your underpants, so we're good. Just don't get caught or we'll have to pretend like we're all mad at you again" Nah, probably not. In any case I wouldn't be surprised if it would take much, much more than the revelation of basic intelligence activities to damage any relations severely.
I wouldn't be to surprised if indeed behind the scenes the relations between Germany and the US weren't that badly effected by this but public opinion counts for a lot more over here in Europe.
The people are a whole lot less trusting in America these days and that expresses itself in what our governments are openly willing to do to help.
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On October 25 2013 17:51 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2013 12:19 FallDownMarigold wrote:On October 25 2013 12:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
I'm fine with spying, on even allies. I don't like pissing off allies though. So unless that info is super awesome, we should probably back off a bit. I don't like to do the "omg but what if this imagined thing was true", but... What if the public response from Germany is "pissed off" just to appease the public back home: "Guys, we're rattling our shields at USA for spying on us--don't worry, we care about that stuff greatly, they're a bunch of sketchy ass holes", but then on the horn with Obama: "it's chill, we sorta know that kinda stuff is going on anyway, and hell, it took you weeks to figure out we had a microphone hidden in your underpants, so we're good. Just don't get caught or we'll have to pretend like we're all mad at you again" Nah, probably not. In any case I wouldn't be surprised if it would take much, much more than the revelation of basic intelligence activities to damage any relations severely. I wouldn't be to surprised if indeed behind the scenes the relations between Germany and the US weren't that badly effected by this but public opinion counts for a lot more over here in Europe. The people are a whole lot less trusting in America these days and that expresses itself in what our governments are openly willing to do to help.
Here we don't trust the US since way back - the iraq fiasco with WMD maybe.
Don't worry, we don't trust our own government too.
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On October 25 2013 17:51 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2013 12:19 FallDownMarigold wrote:On October 25 2013 12:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
I'm fine with spying, on even allies. I don't like pissing off allies though. So unless that info is super awesome, we should probably back off a bit. I don't like to do the "omg but what if this imagined thing was true", but... What if the public response from Germany is "pissed off" just to appease the public back home: "Guys, we're rattling our shields at USA for spying on us--don't worry, we care about that stuff greatly, they're a bunch of sketchy ass holes", but then on the horn with Obama: "it's chill, we sorta know that kinda stuff is going on anyway, and hell, it took you weeks to figure out we had a microphone hidden in your underpants, so we're good. Just don't get caught or we'll have to pretend like we're all mad at you again" Nah, probably not. In any case I wouldn't be surprised if it would take much, much more than the revelation of basic intelligence activities to damage any relations severely. I wouldn't be to surprised if indeed behind the scenes the relations between Germany and the US weren't that badly effected by this but public opinion counts for a lot more over here in Europe. The people are a whole lot less trusting in America these days and that expresses itself in what our governments are openly willing to do to help.
It should be pretty obvious to people that everyone is spying on everyone. The US has been spying on Americans and Germans alike. Why is it surprising that if the Americans will spy on Americans that they would also spy on Germans?
Moreover, if everyone is spying on everyone, even people who try and prevent their own national government from spying on them will be engaging in a futile effort. If Germany spies on everyone else except Germans and the US spies on everyone else but Americans, guess who Germany and the US go to if they want information about their own citizens? Each other. It's very simple.
I find this whole discussion to be just a trivial tangent to the real issue, which is the complete disintegration of privacy for every person on earth. You should be talking about Snowden still. Who cares what Merkel says?
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Your opinion doesn't matter much.
Of course most politicians know, that espionage is usual business even between allies. But when you fail at keeping it secret, you can hardly expect the others to be thankful about it. And of course, the populace won't like it either. The US did their best to alienate all their european allies populace since 9/11. And in the end, even if the european politicians may accept the reasons, the US may have, it won't matter. In Europe elections are quite volatile, changes happen, and if you try to rule against the majority opinion you will quickly be grounded. The more you fuel the anti-US-movement, the less european powers will support the US course. While in the past the EU mostly followed the US in foreign politics to unify the "westen point of view" things have completely changed. Nowadays the EU powers actively try to find their own spot in the global game, independent from the US. EU politicians have to show their voters, that they aren't just following US policy like puppies, even though they do that in in different ways. While France loves to demand military actions, no matter who else supports it, Germany usually does quite the opposite and refuses any military action, even if all others support it. And GB loves to paralyze themselves due to internal problems, because ppl are fed up about being just treated as the 51th state.
And demands for delaying stuff like the US-EU free trade agreement are strong nowadays. Of course, in the end the agreement most likely won't fail over such crises, but even a delay is costly. And if delaying it, just to show strength (to their own voters), wins an election for whoever in Europe, it will happen.
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On October 25 2013 19:00 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2013 17:51 Gorsameth wrote:On October 25 2013 12:19 FallDownMarigold wrote:On October 25 2013 12:04 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
I'm fine with spying, on even allies. I don't like pissing off allies though. So unless that info is super awesome, we should probably back off a bit. I don't like to do the "omg but what if this imagined thing was true", but... What if the public response from Germany is "pissed off" just to appease the public back home: "Guys, we're rattling our shields at USA for spying on us--don't worry, we care about that stuff greatly, they're a bunch of sketchy ass holes", but then on the horn with Obama: "it's chill, we sorta know that kinda stuff is going on anyway, and hell, it took you weeks to figure out we had a microphone hidden in your underpants, so we're good. Just don't get caught or we'll have to pretend like we're all mad at you again" Nah, probably not. In any case I wouldn't be surprised if it would take much, much more than the revelation of basic intelligence activities to damage any relations severely. I wouldn't be to surprised if indeed behind the scenes the relations between Germany and the US weren't that badly effected by this but public opinion counts for a lot more over here in Europe. The people are a whole lot less trusting in America these days and that expresses itself in what our governments are openly willing to do to help. It should be pretty obvious to people that everyone is spying on everyone. The US has been spying on Americans and Germans alike. Why is it surprising that if the Americans will spy on Americans that they would also spy on Germans? Moreover, if everyone is spying on everyone, even people who try and prevent their own national government from spying on them will be engaging in a futile effort. If Germany spies on everyone else except Germans and the US spies on everyone else but Americans, guess who Germany and the US go to if they want information about their own citizens? Each other. It's very simple. I find this whole discussion to be just a trivial tangent to the real issue, which is the complete disintegration of privacy for every person on earth. You should be talking about Snowden still. Who cares what Merkel says?
This is somewhat of my take on this whole thing. I'm actually somewhat pissed off how offended Merkel seems to be about being spied on while not seemingly giving a f*** about her citizens being spied upon. I'm not really against spying either, that is to say, I dare say most the big nations do it anyway against certain targets such as terrorist subjects or other important people. What pisses me off more about this whole spying is that it is not being done through the proper channels and every citizen of the world is basically being spied upon and with this huge of a task it makes it just that much easier to abuse, be it for the government or individuals that have access to the data.
Foreign leaders should be protected from espionage(by their own agency) and if someone is caught spying, such as USA -> Germany it will have political ramifications. From what we have gathered though, someone spying on the whole nation of a country doesn't seem to have any ramifications and the larger portion of the citizens have no realistic way to protect themselves.
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