NSA Monitored Calls of 35 World Leaders 310
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "The Guardian reports that the NSA monitored the phone conversations of 35 world leaders after being given the numbers by an official in another U.S. government department. According to a classified document provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden, the NSA encourages senior officials in its 'customer' departments, such the White House, State and the Pentagon, to share their 'Rolodexes' so the agency can add the phone numbers of leading foreign politicians to their surveillance systems. The NSA memo dated October 2006 that was obtained by the Guardian suggests that such surveillance was not isolated, as the agency routinely monitors the phone numbers of world leaders – and even asks for the assistance of other U.S. officials to do so. However, the memo acknowledges that eavesdropping on the numbers had produced 'little reportable intelligence.' At the daily briefing on Thursday, White House press secretary Jay Carney again refused to answer repeated questions about whether the U.S. had spied on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's calls in the past."
NWO (Score:5, Insightful)
Makes you wonder which country is the real threat in this world.
Re:NWO (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, it's unlikely that the Republic of Iowa would be devoting resources to spying on Chancellor Merkel. There's probably some point where one government is too big, too rich, and too powerful.
Perhaps not coincidentally, the population of Iowa is about the same as the the entirety of the United States when it was formed. Some system designs don't scale indefinitely.
Re:NWO (Score:5, Insightful)
The system was designed to scale just fine. What happened is that the system has been corrupted, and that corruption has been very thorough. Remember that the United States is supposed to separate powers and responsibilities. Three separate branches of Government with no ties to keep each other in check. Separate levels of Government with the same branch separations were supposed to keep the Federal level from becoming too powerful.
After a reset, we must remember what Socrates stated. In order for a Republic to succeed the members of the Republic must be highly educated, and that a Political class must be guarded against. People have been deprived of education in Philosophy and Rhetoric. Without those two things, it's very easy for a small group to manipulate them. It's happened over and over again through history, and we are no exception.
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Seriously funny that you people are all so pig ignorant about it and that this is somehow a surprise. Grow up.
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Who's surprised? (Score:2, Insightful)
Guess what, the U.S. has spy agencies and their job is to spy. It just confirms they're doing an effective job, which is rare in government.
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Yeah I think this a lot. The US has a government, their job is to govern, and yet it's always news when the government governs in a way the people don't like. And here I am just like HELLO, they're a government: it's their job to govern things JEEZ.
Re:Who's surprised? (Score:5, Insightful)
It just confirms they're doing an effective job
Despite breaking the law, disregarding the constitution and making secret laws using a secret court which the people who they serve have no right to access? You may want to do a little more research on how the NSA is 'doing an effective job'
The real rarity in government is elected officials actually serving with an interest in the people.
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Don't get me wrong, I adamantly oppose the NSA spying on American citizens. However, this article is focused on world leaders of other countries.
Re:Who's surprised? (Score:4, Informative)
So, the rest of the world has your permission to start spying on US citizens then?
I sincerely hope that comes true for you.
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They can & do try. It's not exactly a secret that Russia has physical spies [nytimes.com] in the U.S. or China has been cyber-attacking [nbcnews.com] the U.S. or 'friendly' nations like France doing corporate espionage [telegraph.co.uk].
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If the stated goal is to prevent terrorism, then going after your allies is NOT how you do that.
This has now become "we'll spy on everybody because we want to and because we can". It's doing far more than the stated purpose, and damaging your relations with other countries.
If you still think that's a good idea, well, that's your problem.
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Well see, your premise is incorrect. The NSA's stated goal is to "gain a decision advantage for the Nation and our allies under all circumstances" [nsa.gov].
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And how's that gonna work for you when you become persona non grata when your allies all get fed up with you?
If you're undermining your allies and pissing them off, and they tell you the legal facilities you have need to close up shop and go home, you've only hurt yourself in the long run.
Depending on how irate some of these governments get, they could be far les
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What double standard? The NSA is part of the military. You do not use the military on your own citizens.
Re:Who's surprised? (Score:4, Insightful)
Their job is not to get caught, especially when spying on allies ... they're not doing an effective job.
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The US seems to have its crypto ENIGMA like 'win' but you can really only play that emerging telco/radio tech trick once.
What are the options?
The US totally fooled 35 nations signals intelligence teams 100% of the time for how many decades now?
Or the US was fed slight disinformation by 35 nations signals intelligence teams for many years.
Its rare for 35 other governments to be tha
Re:Who's surprised? (Score:5, Insightful)
Guess what, the U.S. has spy agencies and their job is to spy. It just confirms they're doing an effective job, which is rare in government.
Guess what, the U.S has armed forces and their job is to blow stuff up. That does not mean that it's a good idea to have them blow up America's allies. I know everybody spies on everybody else but when you are treating your allies like enemies it's time to re-examine which is more important to you, your alliances or knowing what the president of France eats for breakfast or where the chancellor of Germany buys her strudel. As for doing their job, I fail to see how US intelligence can be said to be doing its job in view of their complete inability to keep a lid on their operations and keep in mind that we haven't even begun to take into account the miserable US intelligence failures that led to the Iraq war which must surely lead one to lower the competence rating of the US intelligence services still further.
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Allies today, enemies tomorrow? Things change quickly. We were fighting Germany & Japan 60 years ago.
Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan are all supposed allies, we have treaties and security counsels with them, but are they really our friends? This [nytimes.com] was 3 years ago.
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Guess what, the U.S. has spy agencies and their job is to spy. It just confirms they're doing an effective job, which is rare in government.
Think about what would happen if this weren't signals intelligence.
Imagine if US agents were routinely captured breaking into offices of senior leaders rifling through filing cabinets. That would be considered a SERIOUS diplomatic incident.
It also highlights the weaknesses in cell phones. For the most part they involve security by obscurity, which isn't good for something that broadcasts all of its data by radio.
Re:Who's surprised? (Score:4, Insightful)
"Guess what, the U.S. has spy agencies and their job is to spy. It just confirms they're doing an effective job, which is rare in government."
You guys who say this have to realize that all of this belligerent surveillance winds up targeted squarely at the heads of American citizens at home. The security apparatus does have one quasi-legitimate problem with their current mission -- If the idea is to tap all of the world's communications all the time, on the Internet, packets are not tagged with geographic or political-state indicators. So the only solution, really, is to suck up every packet, American and non-American alike, which is what they are now doing.
With Internet packet switching, the only way for Americans to expect communication privacy rights is for everyone in the world to have communication privacy rights. Surveilling everyone means surveilling all Americans, all the time. Do you really want that?
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In 2010 we caught some Russians and deported [nytimes.com] them.
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That's not entirely correct. When caught, spies go to jail.
IIRC, the spies fled the country at the very last moment, otherwise they would have rotten in prison.
He enjoyed diplomatic immunity.
As an example: a while ago, russian spies where caught
Good (Score:2, Insightful)
That is their job after all. If this surprises you, you're a moron.
They aren't supposed to spy on their OWN citizens, but the very definition of their job is to spy on important people in other countries.
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Really? Why is it their job to spy on Angela Merkel, if Obama could just read the newspaper or call her up to find out what she's thinking? Nobody says the NSA shouldn't spy on North Korea, but how about the right balance ? Shouldn't they spy on the military infrastructure of enemy countries rather than close allies and trade partners?
Anyway, the bright side of this news is that the cooling down of relations between the US and EU countries might result in less violations of constitutional rights of citizen
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For that they got quality funding and where able to attract the best staff per generation. Later it gets interesting with the CIA, private sector contractors and the domestic surveillance issues.
So.. NSA is doing its job? (Score:2, Interesting)
This is the NSA fufilling its role.. full stop. If you're not a US citizen and you're doing something of interests to our intelligence services you should be targeted.
If you're a citizen of an Echelon [wikipedia.org] country, you have no room to talk because your nation is a partner. (To be honest, I thought Echelon was Anglosphere only, but there's the Netherlands in the fray.. wow. )
And do not for a second act as though other nations don't do this. You can start with Frenchelon [wikipedia.org]. And to those who bleat about economic and
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Sweden and Switzerland had emerging commercial crypto exports and had to be contained too so gov deals where done.
Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, Ethiopia, Libya, Kenya, Morocco, India and Pakistan all helped wit
Obvious (Score:3)
None of these world leaders are shocked or surprised.
Why is Anyone Surprised? (Score:2, Informative)
Here in the US countries like France are heavily restricted from operating and managing US entities that have ties to US security and law enforcement operations. (Bio-metrics, AFIS, Facial Recognition, Crypto, Official Identity and Credential Solutions, etc.) Because they are foreign? No. Because they have been caught spying on the US.
The only different here is the US isn't flopping over and whining like a European Soccer player about a little spying.
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The only different here is the US isn't flopping over and whining like a European Soccer player about a little spying.
Do you seriously believe that US politicians wouldn't feign the same outrage if the roles were reversed and documents about the French tapping congress and your President leaked out?
And no one would be childish enough to rename French Fries to Freedom Fries in the congressional cafeterias.
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What are other nations doing? (Score:3, Interesting)
A vast pile of documents are then sent.
In some safe house an inner group of political leaders meet as another group of political suits 'act' on the world stage with their leaky phones.
Giving the NSA and US just what it wants/expects to hear?
All the same countries faced the same intercept threats from communists, fascism, their own press and political rivals yet show zero skill when using the US global telco networks?
Are all the signals intelligence staff of 35 nations really more loyal to the USA than their own leadership?
Or are we seeing 35 nations playing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Quicksilver_(WWII) [wikipedia.org] with a US gov so entranced with its own intercept skills? With little to no human spies left for "reality" what is the US really gathering other than what 35 govs select to talk about on phones they know are junk.....
Perfectly normal (Score:3, Informative)
Dear German spies: (Score:5, Funny)
Can you please spy on my government and tell me what the hell they're up to these days? I have no clue, and they're certainly not telling.
Thanks,
An American
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Dear European,
Snowden told us what the NSA's up to. I want to know what the rest of the clowns are doing. I hear the dulcet strains of Yakety Sax drifting down Pennsylvania Ave. from the White House, but bugger me with a cactus if I can figure out what they're doing in there.
and the reason they did it was (Score:2)
... because they could.
As opposed to all other intelligence/counter-intelligence agencies in the world, who do exactly the same thing, for exactly the same reason.
I think the reason they got "little reportable intelligence" is because when you are in a position like that (president of a country, foreign dignitary, etc) , you at the very least _assume_ your allies will try to listen to your conversations.
At this level "reportable intelligence" conversations are not carried over public/listed phone lines, but
uh (Score:2)
do you even understand what the word trust means (Score:2, Insightful)
Do you understand what broken trust is? ... means?
Do you understand that you will be the outcast bully because all you do is fling shit at your former friends and allies.
Do you understand that nobody wants to play with you any more because you turned into a arrogant paranoid dick?
Do you understand what do undo others
You lost all your morals and with it any claims to be of any value to the world.
Stop excusing your paranoid behavior and rediscover your former values. It will be long way of humility to rebuild
How is this news? (Score:2)
Of course the NSA spied on foreign nations - it's a spy agency after all.
Allies have always spied on one another. In the past British intelligence has provided information to the FBI that it had gathered while spying on Americans.
The outrage was that the NSA was spying internally on Americans, since that should require a warrant.
Who isn't on that list of 35? (Score:2)
Mr. Unimportant from the land of Do Not Disturb. ... and that guy is hurt and offended.
***
Kidding aside, I can't imagine anyone in these governments being actually surprised -- what I figure is that the corporations NOT on the "Multinational Stranglehold of Governments" team is the group that is saying; "Hey, maybe we lost those trade negotiations while someone was spying on Al Qaeda, they were really doing corporate espionage."
And then the SHOCK once the American public realizes; wow, our military and inte
Shocked and Odd (Score:2)
Should we be shocked? I don't find that odd at all.
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I have a word for you, that word is "media". That is why it has been so easy to deceive people, and why I agree with FudRucker that it's not the people's fault. Journalists are supposed to be the biggest check against abuse. While politicians were being bought by a select few with too much money, the media was also being taken over by the same group, as was the eduction system.
If people are deprived of information and intentionally fed false information it should not be a surprise that they are misled.
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The election was last month. She doesn't have to worry about getting reelected for several years.
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Have you been paying attention to the news?
The EU parliament voted to suspend SWIFT, commission will ignore them of course ... but it will come up for renewal in 2015 and they need parliament then. A law with absolutely huge penalties (a percentage points of annual company revenue) on sharing data with foreign intelligence has been passed (slightly toothless at the moment due to safe harbour agreements, but at this point I doubt those agreements will last long).
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Soo... there has been a vote to suspend Swift data sharing that will be ignored anyway + leave plenty of time to "sway" parliament vote by 2015 when it comes up for review. By then the people would have forgotten anyway and public outrage will be even more fringe than it already is.
You mention a toothless sharing data law (link?), but as we see from todays news there is nobody in goverment willing to enforce it [slashdot.org] - it takes a bunch of law students to even get some kind of acknowledgment of the problem.
If t
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"Sure they make a little public stink about it and feign outrage to get re-elected (yes that means you, Merkel), "
She got re-elected a couple of days ago.
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Bullshit. China, russia, and france have all recently been busted spying on the U.S.
Re:Nothing of Value (Score:4, Informative)
No, this is pretty much normal spying. If you had a spy agency and didn't monitor other nations for strategic advantage, you'd wonder what the hell they were doing. I'm not saying it's unreasonable to be opposed, because moral objections are best objections, just that pretending it's bad spycraft is silly.
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just that pretending it's bad spycraft is silly.
Surely you mean tradecraft not spycraft :)
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No, not really. Tradecraft refers to the individual skills and best practices used in actual espionage. I was trying to use a term referring to the overall national strategy and chose a distinct one on purpose.
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No, this is pretty much normal spying. If you had a spy agency and didn't monitor your enemies for strategic advantage, you'd wonder what the hell they were doing.
FTFY.
'Allies' is supposed to mean more than "we buy each others' stuff".
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The U.S. has treaties of some sort with essentially every nation on the planet, with the exception of those we pretend don't exist. You can't think of international diplomacy like high school, where you've got friends and you've got foes. All alliances between nations are ones of convenience, and not of any sort of emotional bond.
In fact, the U.S's "closest allies" are all nations we've waged war or proxy war against in the past: U.K., Canada, Germany, Japan. Realpolitik dominates international diplomac
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Re:Nothing of Value (Score:4, Interesting)
No, he quite distinctly had 2 points.
1. Hypocrisy
2. Free-slinging of nukes as a foreign policy.
#2 is hyperbole, but there's nothing wrong with identifying hyperbole and asking for a more restrained perspective.
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Yes, you're free to object on moral grounds. I said that. I'm quite sure of it.
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The nukes weren't even the deadliest bombings by the U.S. against Japan in WWII, much less including the blitz or the bombing of dresden. The tools used don't alter the morality of killing in war. Tokyo was worse, Dresden was worse, London was worse, some parts of southern Italy may have been worse.
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>> NSA monitored the phone conversations of 35 world leaders
And nothing of value was gained.
Only 35? Im surprised that out of the 196-ish [about.com] countries in the world, only 34 of them are considered as bad or worse than Germany [bbc.co.uk].
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"Only 35? Im surprised that out of the 196-ish [about.com] countries in the world, only 34 of them are considered as bad or worse than Germany [bbc.co.uk]."
They should be glad that they have friends that patiently listen to them, it's what friends do.
Especially friends who still have their nukes in storage at your place.
The French Also Spy on the US (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.france24.com/en/20131024-nsa-france-spying-squarcini-dcri-hollande-ayrault-merkel-usa-obama [france24.com]
And the french DSGE has been doing Economic INtelligence (Industrial secrets) for decades. For example in 1991 they were caught bugging all the seats in Air France jets.
Mon Du, Gambling at Ricks!
Re:The French Also Spy on the US (Score:4, Interesting)
Those comments are distracting. Just because others do it, does not make it any better.
The answer to spying is not reverse spying (ala "give me my secret information back") but to exert pressure. Spying is a sign of mistrust and means communication is poor.
Re:Nothing of Value (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd say that Germany wanting their own internet now [reuters.com], joining the BRICS countries [indrus.in] to do so is something of value.
It's time that the world realizes that internet is incompatible with having a bully with power over it.
Re:Nothing of Value (Score:5, Informative)
He did it all to himself.
"The NSA memo dated October 2006"
Seems to me it is just another case of Obama getting blamed for the actions of the Bush Administration.
Re:Nothing of Value (Score:5, Insightful)
Did Obama do anything to stop the spying after taking office?
Well, then isn't Obama just as guilty as Bush on this issue?
Re:Nothing of Value (Score:5, Informative)
It depends on if he knew about it. If he did then he's obviosly responsible. If he didn't then that's of course also bad. Either way is not good for him.
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It depends on if he knew about it. If he did then he's obviosly responsible. If he didn't then that's of course also bad. Either way is not good for him.
If he knew, he's responsible. If he didn't, he's incompetent. Which do you prefer ?
Re:Nothing of Value (Score:5, Funny)
I liked George Bush. Both irresponsible and incompetent. But he had some personality.
Incompetent (Score:3, Informative)
Really? So if your company SysAdmin is secretly spying on your email, it's the CEO's fault? Even though the SysAdmin is the one with the technical knowledge to both implement and hide the spying?
Not saying that Obama is innocent, but not knowing doesn't make him incompetent. It might just mean that the NSA are good at covering up.
If you want to fault him for something, fault him stepping on those who blow the whistle on these sort of activities, instead of commending them like he should.
Re:Incompetent (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:SIX ... LONG YEARS to stop the program (Score:5, Insightful)
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I agree with most of the above except for one:
A President is not a commoner.
Yes. Yes, he is. He is a common citizen just like the rest of us, who has been temporarily granted the authority to help lead this country. He is, in the end, nothing more than the chief bureaucrat of this nation.
To presume anything else is a mistake. He is not a king. He is not a lord. When he leaves office, the country continues without him very well. He is a peon. That We-The-People have allowed this jumped-up-clerk (and that's t
Please read the following ... (Score:5, Informative)
From http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/10/us-denies-tapping-merkel-mobile-phone-20131023185133142198.html [aljazeera.com] ---
US President Barack Obama had assured German Chancellor Angela Merkel that the US is not monitoring her communications, according to the White House spokesman.
From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24647268 [bbc.co.uk]
The White House said President Obama had told Chancellor Merkel the US was not snooping on her communications.
"The United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the chancellor," White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Wednesday.
From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/23/merkel-phone-tapped_n_4150812.html [huffingtonpost.com]
For its part, the White House denied that the U.S. is listening in on Merkel's phone calls now.
"The president assured the chancellor that the United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the chancellor," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. "The United States greatly values our close cooperation with Germany on a broad range of shared security challenges."
Re:Please read the following ... (Score:5, Informative)
Look at the tense of the language.
Translates as "We are not doing it at this precise instant" (as widely reported, it seems very likely they did so in the past - and, no doubt, will do so again in the future, if they think they won't get caught).
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It was the former president (Score:2)
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Sure there was. It has embarrased the Obama administration, and destroyed his credibility with American allies.
No, no, no, no and no.
This is all just a bunch of political bullshit people. There are a wide variety of world leaders being monitored by a wide variety of governments, and the politicians and world leaders are all perfectly aware of this fact.
All these stories are, is various politicians jumping on various iterations of the NSA story for their own political purposes. They are playing off anti-US sentiment among their populaces to further their own agendas. Which is fine, that's how politics works, but stop
Just because others are eating shit ... (Score:5, Insightful)
... should you eat shit as well ?
This is all just a bunch of political bullshit people. There are a wide variety of world leaders being monitored by a wide variety of governments
I am getting VERY FUCKING TIRED of listening to this asinine excuse !
Just because the whole world is eating shit, would you eat shit too ?
The world's government may be tapping each others, but they are NOT caught in the action.
America, on the other hand, did.
Why can't Obama just admit what happened, and then proceed with action to remedy the problem, instead of issuing a CATEGORY DENIAL to everything ?
Re:Nothing of Value (Score:5, Insightful)
It has embarrased the Obama administration, and destroyed his credibility with American allies.
I am afraid that much more had been destroyed than Obama's personal reputation.
I am afraid that the reputation of THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA had been severely destroyed because of what Obama administration has done.
First, it was Brazil. Then, France. Followed by Mexico, and then Germany.
And when Angela Merkel angrily called up Obama regarding matter, you know what Obama did ?
THAT GUY DENIED EVERYTHING !!
Obama was caught with his hands in the cookie jar and yet he acted just like a little kid telling bold face lies.
As an American, I rather my president comes clean, admitting his faults, remedy the mistakes, than telling seriously inane bold face lies.
Obama seemed to forget that he is THE POTUS - and as the PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, his category denial has shamed the nation of the United States of America.
I am sure, by now, no government in the world would ever trust the President of the United States, nor the nation of the United States of America.
In other words, Obama has shamed all of us, the Americans !!
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In other words, Obama has shamed all of us, the Americans !!
Not to worry, US reputation had been plummeting for a while before Obama took office.
Besides, I think most international observers will recognize that the US govt does not represent its people. Which is a shame, of course, but also means that US citizens have some credit left whereas their government does not.
What's freaking me out, though, is there doesn't seem to be a bottom -- rock or otherwise.
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I am an American staying outside America, and in my personal experience, most of the world people (non-Ameicans) do not seem to separate the American government from the people of the United States of America.
In other words, the world at large treats what the American government did as if it was done by the citizens of America.
Well, I don't know where you are located, but in my limited surroundings (Netherlands) I think my statement is accurate.
it's changing all the time, of course. The US is a democratic republic so, as time goes on and administration after administration of both major parties get away with all kinds of wicked behaviour -- unpunished by the electorate -- maybe more and more outside observers may conclude that, well, maybe a majority of citizens do support this stuff after all.
But like I said, at least where I am
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The NSA is suppose to spy on other countries.
I'd prefer it if they spied on countries that are actively hostile towards us, if they're going to spy at all. No, spying to collect evidence is not okay (or else spying on citizens would also be okay).
This apologist nonsense is not surprising, but it is an absolute eyesore.
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The NSA gets huge volumes of data from the EU free of charge ... companies get a carte blanche to share data with the NSA by the EU. They are jeopardizing all of that by getting caught like this ...
Thanks Obama! (Score:2)
nm, just seems an appropriate tag for a Bush Era memo.
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Why did he EVER take a job with the NSA if he thought all forms of electronic intelligence were bad and worthy of spilling the details about to the whole world?
Because the CIA fired him for those very reasons. He's not a hero, he's just an attention whore like Assange. Both do things in the name of the moral high ground ... yet utterly ignore the fact they do shit to harm all sorts of people.
I'd bet the only reason we heard about domestic spying FIRST from Snowden is because some newspaper reporter looking at the documents found them and wanted to run with it first, not because Snowden pointed it out. He's just another Bradley Manning, all pissed off he wasn't
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Douchebag (Score:2)
The REAL douchebag is Obama, definitely not Snowden.
We ought to be grateful to Edward Snowden in allowing us, the Americans, a chance to redeem ourselves.
The NSA, the PRISM PROGRAM, the TAPPING of foreign leaders, are way out of bound.
If not for Edward Snowden, more despicable schemes might commence, with even worse consequences to the Americans and the rest of the world.
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Allies have always spied on one another. It's the way foreign intelligence works.