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The "they spy too" is pretty cut and dry nationalistic and a bit simple. The argument appeals to the fairness that both can do it. In case of PRISM it is privileged access to companies that are a lot easier to compel by NSA since they have their primary base of operation in USA and fear political or legal retribution. That is not exactly an equal playing field when most of the big players are american companies. EU parliament has already started corner-discussion of a "european internet" where they do not have to deal with US companies and their fundamentally different world. The international american companies are therefore obviously very vocal about pressuring NSA to give them some room to lobby against that. Btw. PRISM seems to have some international complicites, probably in line with ECHELON.
Spying on EUs politicians is what should be expected, while spying on consolates is problematic because of the nature of a consulate in itself being the non-secret counterpart to political espionage.
The leaks have started an EU lobby for finding what Obama is calling "the right balance". It is clear that Obama has to defend USAs position to some extend, but being a little less definitive than "I am convinced that we have already found that balance." would probably serve him well since everyone can see that the senate is in flames on the issue of legal interpretations.
The argument about respecting EU as allies is mostly to hide the embarrasment of how much clout the US government has in terms of manipulating the fundamentally divided EU to accept or refuse legislation.
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On July 19 2013 06:39 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2013 06:33 Shiori wrote:On July 19 2013 05:45 Plansix wrote:On July 19 2013 05:39 AnomalySC2 wrote:On July 19 2013 05:30 docvoc wrote:On July 19 2013 05:20 AnomalySC2 wrote:On July 19 2013 05:13 Plansix wrote:On July 19 2013 05:06 AnomalySC2 wrote:On July 19 2013 05:05 docvoc wrote:On July 19 2013 04:50 Sbrubbles wrote:Beyond the moral implication of spying on foreigners in foreign countries (where the US has no jurisdiction), the US are also most likely violating international law both in the form of signed treaties and customary international law. Americans should remember that US law is (almost) entirely irrelevant when the issue is the US State interfering with the rights of people outside its jurisdiction. I posted this link a bit back, it's short and doesn't require any background in law http://arengel.edublogs.org/2013/07/02/international-law-american-law-and-the-legality-of-the-us-spying-program/Edit: You have to understand that if my government starts invading my privacy I, as a citizen, can attempt to do something about it. If a foreign government does it, I have no direct means of interfering, especially if my own government doesn't have the resourses to stop it. In a sense, China's got this problem more figured out than every else. First off, you can't do anything about it. What are you as a peson going to do? You'd need a group of people behind you to do anything. The days of one man starting an armed revolt are over, they died a long time ago. Also, international laws are the ones that are violated most often; whenever I see people say "my international laws are violated" I just laugh. Few countries actually follow international laws, and even fewer attempt to hide the fact that they violate these laws time and time again. It doesn't matter if the spying program is legal, it's never supposed to be seen in the light of day. lol. Just lol. He is 100% correct. Other countries flaw out ignores international law. China hacks US companies all the time and is part of the UN. We complain about it too, and they just ignore us and we continue trading with them. Russia just ignores sections of law of laws they don't like, like stuff about the Siberian sea or who should get weapons in a conflict. We don't all get along as well as everyone thinks. International law is more of a suggestion, rather than an order. And what about the, who cares if it isn't legal purely because it wasn't supposed to be known about ? Meth Labs are all legal now, excellent logic. I really feel like you don't have a grasp of international politics at all. Also, your meth lab analogy is a non-sequitur. You seem to have no concept of what "covert" means. Covert means that a government knows that it is illegal, and is going to do it anyways because it is in their best interest and in their opinion, the people's best interest. Do you have any idea how long covert spying has been going on? It hasn't been this big for less than 10 years, I can tell you that lol. The fact that you said "lol. just lol." to me in response seems to make me think that your paradigm of the international law needs updating. What they're doing now is beyond any amount of "spying" done ever before. And no I'm just saying your argument could be made for anything illegal, it doesn't make it right. Ok, its wrong, evil and illegal and the US are bad, bad people for being so not nice to Germany and others. Now that we have done that, we have this huge trade deal that we would like to offer that will make everyone tons of money. Is anyone so upset that they don't want in? One.Two.Three.Four.Take your pick. Everything you have said on this topic is one of these, as far as I can remember. So what is your solution, Shiori? Beyond just posting wikipedia links about logic arguments?
Why do I need a solution to assert that something is wrong or bad? I'm not a policymaker. But I can see that the current policy is obviously immoral, prone to abuse, and doubtfully effective at achieving its stated ends; you don't need to be a policymaker to see that.
Should we appoligize to Germany and other countries and then what?
Apology should have happened the day after the NSA was revealed, but yes, the US should apologize.
Pledge to keep the CIA out of their country and no longer spy on them until we distrust them?
Ideally, yes, this is something the US should pledge to do. Since the US has some sort of complex about everyone being an enemy, though, and since the modern world does have a couple of lunatics every once in awhile, I wouldn't have a problem with the CIA remaining in their country and keeping tabs, in a general sense, on what's going on. Hell, that isn't even illegal. Should the US stop blanket surveillance of German communications? Yes, because that's a massive and unjustifiable infringement on the sovereignty of Germany with absolutely no immediate benefit, only a hypothetical long-term benefit, and no impending threat from Germany nor anyone in Germany.
When would that happen?
Hopefully never. I like to think that Germany isn't about to attack the US in the near or distant future. Considering we have absolutely no reason to believe Germany is going to attack the US, and I do mean absolutely no reason at all, I'd say that, whatever the case, the US definitely doesn't have any real reason to mistrust them right now.
Or lets go for the root of all of this: When is a nation justified in spying? When is it ok for them to do so?
Depends if the spying is actually illegal or not, and what it entails. Monitoring the private/secret communications of heads of state, governmental figures (acting in their capacity as such)? Only if there is serious reason to believe that those heads of state are an urgent and grave threat to either international stability or some particular nation; the nation in question may therefore spy on the threatening nation in the latter case, whereas in the former case, any nation may spy on them, provided their espionage is directed toward that purpose.
Massively monitoring and/or collecting metadata of millions and millions of private communications by foreign nationals in their own country? Only in the case of real, unilateral hostility or open war, and only until such time as those matters are resolved, with a latency of whatever period corresponds to the seriousness of the initial hostility.
tl;dr: nothing that applies to what the NSA does, unless the NSA is spying on North Korea or something.
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When people say "if you have nothing to hide, you shouldn't have anything to worry about" what they are really saying is "if you have nothing to hide, you don't need rights."
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Apparently 1 senator(Graham) from the US considers proposing boycotting the next Sochi olympics because of the Snowden situation, and even compared Russia to Nazi Germany, and Putin to Hitler as using him for propaganda purposes.
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On July 19 2013 05:28 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On July 19 2013 05:20 AnomalySC2 wrote:On July 19 2013 05:13 Plansix wrote:On July 19 2013 05:06 AnomalySC2 wrote:On July 19 2013 05:05 docvoc wrote:On July 19 2013 04:50 Sbrubbles wrote:Beyond the moral implication of spying on foreigners in foreign countries (where the US has no jurisdiction), the US are also most likely violating international law both in the form of signed treaties and customary international law. Americans should remember that US law is (almost) entirely irrelevant when the issue is the US State interfering with the rights of people outside its jurisdiction. I posted this link a bit back, it's short and doesn't require any background in law http://arengel.edublogs.org/2013/07/02/international-law-american-law-and-the-legality-of-the-us-spying-program/Edit: You have to understand that if my government starts invading my privacy I, as a citizen, can attempt to do something about it. If a foreign government does it, I have no direct means of interfering, especially if my own government doesn't have the resourses to stop it. In a sense, China's got this problem more figured out than every else. First off, you can't do anything about it. What are you as a peson going to do? You'd need a group of people behind you to do anything. The days of one man starting an armed revolt are over, they died a long time ago. Also, international laws are the ones that are violated most often; whenever I see people say "my international laws are violated" I just laugh. Few countries actually follow international laws, and even fewer attempt to hide the fact that they violate these laws time and time again. It doesn't matter if the spying program is legal, it's never supposed to be seen in the light of day. lol. Just lol. He is 100% correct. Other countries flaw out ignores international law. China hacks US companies all the time and is part of the UN. We complain about it too, and they just ignore us and we continue trading with them. Russia just ignores sections of law of laws they don't like, like stuff about the Siberian sea or who should get weapons in a conflict. We don't all get along as well as everyone thinks. International law is more of a suggestion, rather than an order. And what about the, who cares if it isn't legal purely because it wasn't supposed to be known about ? Meth Labs are all legal now, excellent logic. You are fond of taking someones argument and just running to really stupid places with it. Spying is illegal by the UN laws, but a lot of countries do it anyways. Hacking computers is also illegal, but china does it all the time and doesn't give a shit. We yell at them all the time for it, but they do it. France spied on German companies between 200-2010 and there was nothing they could do about it either. The US caught a large number of Russian spies in the US a few years ago and we just traded them for a few things we wanted from Russia and moved on. And let us not forget Putin stealing a Super Bowl ring from the owner of the Patriots front of everyone. That was pretty funny and he still claims was a gift to this day. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/reliable-source/wp/2013/06/16/vladimir-putin-denies-stealing-superbowl-ring/
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/06/16/patriots-seem-to-concede-putin-didnt-steal-krafts-ring/
http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap1000000212539/article/patriots-robert-kraft-tells-vladimir-putin-ring-story-for-laughs
-Craft admitted it was a joke, so did his spokes people.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/568095/putin-offers-ring-to-make-peace-with-patriots-football-owner/
http://www.sportsmedia101.com/newenglandpatriots/2013/06/21/vladimir-putin-does-not-remember-taking-super-bowl-ring/
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United States104 Posts
Sadly, I doubt the US government will allow him to get the prize as they have more then enough power to make sure that he doesn't.
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On July 19 2013 10:44 MostGroce wrote:
Sadly, I doubt the US government will allow him to get the prize as they have more then enough power to make sure that he doesn't.
In America government has no power, the corporations and the Jews do, the government officials are just puppets who get lobbied for their decisions by leftovers towards their retirement homes.
User was banned for this post.
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On July 19 2013 10:44 MostGroce wrote:
Sadly, I doubt the US government will allow him to get the prize as they have more then enough power to make sure that he doesn't.
If he gets the prize I'm pretty sure most of Europe would open their arms to welcome him to asylum, and he would most definitely get that prize. Given the current state of American and European relations it'd be a much more consequential blow for America to even attempt to try. Sadly, I'm pretty sure Obama would actually attempt it.
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EPT
