NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/24/nsa-surveillance-world-leaders-calls?CMP=twt_gu

by qubitsam • 13 years ago

501 223 13 years ago

jnardiello• 13 years ago

Quite expected. My disappointment with the US gov and its general attitude is reaching new levels. Really BAD.

fein• 13 years ago

    Jay Carney issued a statement that said the US 
    "is not monitoring and will not monitor" the 
    German chancellor's communications.

This is probably the best tell the US government has for sniffing out the bullshit. If they don't explicitly deny the event occurring in the past, it happened.

Reminds me of a Spaceballs scene:

    Colonel Sandurz: Now. You're looking at now, sir. 
    Everything that happens now, is happening now.

    Dark Helmet: What happened to then?

    Colonel Sandurz: We passed then.

    Dark Helmet: When?

    Colonel Sandurz: Just now. We're at now now.

I imagine this is probably about how the "Cover Your Ass" conversation goes before official comments are made to the press.

singold• 13 years ago

When I heard the "is not monitoring and will not monitor" I thougth "We didn't, and we will not do it again"

sn41• 13 years ago

This is a classic non-denial denial:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-denial_denial

In these cases, I think what is important is what is not being said. For example, they aren't saying: we did not monitor the Chancellor's phone calls in the past. We didn't and won't record other senior EU officials, etc. The problem is that journalists do not pry enough, because if they are too curious, they will eventually lose privileged access to these government sources.

kybernetikos• 13 years ago

As Bismarck (although I came across it on 'Yes, Minister') apparently said

"Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied."

adventured3• 13 years ago

Their spoken words have very little value. They're willing to directly lie about all aspects of this and have demonstrated that repeatedly.

They initially - and to varying degrees still - claim they did not and do not spy on Americans.

I don't think you have to worry about tells. Given what we already know they did, assume they've done much worse. It's a very safe bet. Assume they're monitoring every single thing they can get their hands on when it comes to international leaders.

ethana• 13 years ago

US Foreign Policy: How to turn friends into enemies and isolate yourself from the world

clubhi• 13 years ago

Well to be fair, the Germans did try to kill us all.

_b8r02• 13 years ago

Not everyone. And to be fair it was only twice, and it was a long time ago, and it's not like Germany was the only country to try.

jlgreco2• 13 years ago

Yeah, and the Mongolians once sacked the world. Should we be afraid of them too?

maaku• 13 years ago

Maybe we should step up the spying in Confederate states too?

krapp5• 13 years ago

Yes. And the US is the only country whose intelligence service has ever done anything like this.

And newsflash ... we probably bug your embassies too.

nickff• 13 years ago

This comment reminded me that the USSR once built an embassy for the USA in Moscow; it was so full of bugs everywhere that the Americans had to tear it down and start from scratch.

bobwaycott6• 13 years ago

I seem to have missed the part where it was suggested that only the US is guilty.

If there existed a solid body of evidence to disclose to the world that Germany, France, or Russia was carrying out such actions on a wide scale, that would dominate the press in under a minute.

This is the US receiving equal treatment given a preponderance of evidence.

This is how the press should be.

krapp5• 13 years ago

I'm not suggesting this isn't news, it certainly is. Just that it's not out of the ordinary for either the NSA or governments in general. It's news in that we got caught.

ceejayoz9• 13 years ago

This is the understood and expected function of the NSA, isn't it? Collecting signals intelligence from foreign sources? Does anyone honestly believe the Germans aren't regularly trying to figure out ways to listen to American officials' communications?

I find the NSA's domestic spying to be appalling... but this is the sort of thing everyone knew the NSA was responsible for since its inception.

javajosh2• 13 years ago

Yeah, even if you're totally appalled by the PRISM NSA scandal, it's hard to get upset when the NSA spies on foreign leaders - which is it's job.

It's really strange when you think about it that even (especially?) friendly countries spy on each other, but there it is. And the funny thing is that if the Germans, or anyone, get upset about it we can just point to their foreign intelligence service and be like, "well, what are those guys doing?" and then they walk sheepishly away.

TomGullen• 13 years ago

Well I didn't know. Thought if you were allies you'd have a bit of respect for each other but guess I've been to naive.

bparsons• 13 years ago

These are close, close allies though. We aren't talking about North Korea. We are talking about countries who have deep diplomatic and military ties.

The reason why you wouldn't do something like this, is because there was a damn good chance that it would leak out, mortally wounding your relationship with these people.

Secondly, the utility of this particular SIGINT program is highly questionable. What is the ROI on something like this? Germany is not plotting against the United States. What scenario would they use info for?

AsymetricCom• 13 years ago

Israel is a pretty close ally.

ceejayoz9• 13 years ago

Germany is not plotting against the United States. What scenario would they use info for?

Being certain that Germany is not plotting against the United States, I'd guess.

grey-area9• 13 years ago

What scenario would they use [this] info for?

Economic espionage, sabotaging foreign trade talks which aren't judged to be in the interests of the US, gaining the upper hand in negotiations. The potential utility of this sort of SIGINT is high, if you are willing to engage in amoral behaviour on a massive scale, treating allies as enemies.

So the question it raises is, why were they collecting this information? You can be sure they would not collect it for no reason.

grecy• 13 years ago

This of it this way:

Do you routinely monitor the calls, emails and communications of your closest friends and relatives?

At some point, those people are going to cut you out of their lives for being so disrespectful and immoral.

ceejayoz9• 13 years ago

Do you routinely monitor the calls, emails and communications of your closest friends and relatives?

No, but I don't do joint military exercises or globally coordinated bank bailouts with them, either. I don't think NATO easily analogized by my Thanksgiving table.

sdoering3• 13 years ago

Yes, sort of I do. I check the FB-Pages. ;-) Sorry, but something like this seems to me to be the reason, nobody really cares about NSA spying on him (at least here in Germany).

We all do it. We all give in to our voyeuristic urges. We all "spy" upon our neighbors, spouses, friends and so on. We do not get the scope. We do not know, what it means, if states do this. We do not think about different hierarchical power levels and so on.

We just do Facebook and feel, that it is more or less the same, what the NSA does. At least, that is what was being said, when I asked around.

conductor2• 13 years ago

But we are not at war with everyone, and those countries involved (like Germany, France and Italy) are our partners, economical and military partners. I can accept doing SIGINT on non-friendly countries and organizations but is it correct to spy on your own people and partner countries?

krapp5• 13 years ago

but is it correct to spy on your own people and partner countries?

It's rude, but I think to a degree it is acceptable, and probably expected. Friendly countries spy on each other all the time. For one thing, friendly countries might not remain friendly forever.

ceejayoz9• 13 years ago

Germany and France do it to us. They're likely just not as talented at it. One way nation states stay allies is knowing, at least to some level, that the public statements match the private.

http://www.france24.com/en/20131024-nsa-france-spying-squarc...

rainsford• 13 years ago

I think a useful question to ask is whether or not being "partners" means each country is universally willing to put the best interests of the other country first, even when that conflicts with their own best interests. If the answer is no, then intelligence gathering would seem to have at least some role even among allies.

sailfast• 13 years ago

It would be perfectly reasonable for politicians and diplomats in allied countries the world over to express mock outrage at this so they can keep their voters / citizens appeased that they have asserted their sovereignty, while continuing the relationship with the united states. I'm not sure these leaders are as upset as the headlines make out, but I haven't read any transcripts of the discussions.

frostmatthew• 13 years ago

Intelligence from allies should come from cooperation, not espionage.

meepmorp2• 13 years ago

Why is relying exclusively on information that's been filtered through a foreign government, possibly with its own agenda, a sensible way to gather intelligence?

jsmcgd2• 13 years ago

The US public expects the NSA to devote its resources to protecting it from foreign threats, like terrorists, not its allies.

ceejayoz9• 13 years ago

Humans have a long history of fallings-out between allies, at times in very surprising ways. One way of avoiding this is knowing what your ally is up to.

yk• 13 years ago

Given how very SHOCKED!1! German politicians react, one could get the impression that they honestly believed the NSA would only spy on the lower classes.

sasvari• 13 years ago

  This is the understood and expected function of the NSA

The task of the USG should be to level the actions of its intelligence agencies. If it's ok for the USG to fuck with their allies, then it's the way it is. But don't expect every of its allies to agree with that. There's a difference to spy on everything which moves in Iran/North Korea or France/Germany/you call it. This is making waves in Europe ... I am not sure if that is worth to piss off your close allies.

This might not be getting the big news in the US, but it certainly does in Europe. And if there is only a slight chance that this might affect the opinion people in Europe have about the US(G), everybody in the US should be worried.

mpyne5• 13 years ago

You know, I've been a big defender of the role for signals intelligence, including NSA's hand in such.

But there is a lot to be said for discretion, especially when you're talking about the top echelon of our NATO allies! Even my defenses of NSA have been predicated on the actual need for intelligence collection. This has the corollary that collection without any use should not be sanctioned.

So absent some evidence of our allies conspiring against us in things like WTO negotiations, I don't see a justification for such phone tapping. Even though it's probably legal, was it really the best use of NSA resources? What actionable intel could they have hoped to gain? We're not talking about Medvedev or Putin's phones after all.

Certainly we have known that the NSA has the capability to tap into many international communications circuits, but we've also "known" that such taps are predicated on the national security interests of the United States. So now the question: Was pushing far beyond the envelope worth it? Was causing a boatload of whistleblowers (not just Snowden) to form still beneficial to the U.S. in the end?

I would judge that it was not, at this point. What I'm interested in knowing is when these taps of allied leadership's telephones actually stopped? Specifically, was it only after Snowden's leaks? Did Obama put a stop to it? Sometime in between? All we know at this point is that the U.S. isn't doing it now, and pinky swears not to do so in the future.

As far as the Germans doing it to us... maybe. But the NSA is also responsible for ensuring that they can't break our comms even if we do assume they're trying. But maybe I'm naive but I honestly think they are probably focused more on Russia, Islamists and other threats to Germany, than on what Obama is saying to Boehner.

aclevernickname• 13 years ago

your comment is calibrating, because it shows that there is a limit to how much privacy invasion the average american will stand for. Thank you for being so forthcoming.

lemming2• 13 years ago

All we know at this point is that the U.S. isn't doing it now...

Actually, we don't know that - we only know they said they're not. Given that Clapper flat out lied about surveillance at the start of all this that isn't worth much.

guscost2• 13 years ago

To quote, er, myself: "What does the NSA even do if not this?"

http://guscost.com/2013/06/27/nsa-snoops/

prof_hobart5• 13 years ago

Spy on people they believe are enemies, rather than allies or innocent bystanders?

ttt_• 13 years ago

> Does anyone honestly believe the Germans aren't regularly trying to figure out ways to listen to American officials' communications?

Your statement seems to equate "it's usual to spy" with "it's alright to spy". Spying on close allies only pays off if you are not caught. It's risky to do it and I expect each Nation State weights that in when deciding to do it or not. If the Germans do try to spy on US and they get caught, there will be fallout on relations.

The US got caught spying on several allies. They took the risk. There will be repercussions on diplomatic relations. There will be repercussions on public image and trust.

Apparently from the leaked memo, the intelligence gained didn't really pay off this time around, and since they got caught, all they did was break the trust.

Was it a good trade off?

Kiro• 13 years ago

Why do you find domestic spying to be appalling? It's done because of the same reasons they spy on foreign sources.

bandushrew• 13 years ago

When ability is no longer a bottleneck on the actions of an individual or group, that is the time that the character of that individual or group is discovered.

The character of the US government in general, and the NSA in particular, is apparently that of a rotten, sneaking, dishonest liar.

I cannot say that I am surprised, human nature being what it is, but I am very disappointed.

On the bright side, it is in good international company.

fidotron• 13 years ago

I genuinely fail to be outraged by this. The NSA has a job, which is the monitoring of the signals of foreign militaries and governments. That they were doing that is not surprising or necessarily bad since those entities should be more than capable of operating in such an environment.

The problem is the mass slurping of the data of everyone else.

judk2• 13 years ago

That's like saying the DoD has a job, which is to go to war with foreign countries.

sinak• 13 years ago

A note to say that the Stop Watching Us coalition rally is now just two days away. If you're on the east coast, it's not too late to attend. If you're interested, you can find out more here:

https://rally.stopwatching.us/

Privacy is one of the hardest things to get folks riled up about. It erodes slowly, and for "good" reasons, like defending the country against terrorism. But privacy is critical to a meaningful democracy. Strangely, many of the members of Congress fail to understand how important it is, and that compromising our privacy for security is a huge mistake. Particularly since those compromises are not necessary.

The fact that the NSA is monitoring the calls of world leaders is also worrying. But it's more of a foreign policy issue, damaging international relations and making it more difficult for countries to trust the US. I think it's foolish, and needs to stop, but it doesn't threaten our freedom directly.

javajosh2• 13 years ago

Thanks for posting this - it's the most important political topic of this generation. If I was anywhere close I'd attend.

I started chatting with a guy at a local bar over lunch the other day. The topic turned to surveillance and Snowden. Turned out my conversational partner was an off-duty cop. He thought Snowden was a traitor, and that the surveillance was totally justified because, "It makes protecting the innocent easier." And I asked him: "well, wouldn't being able to enter any home or car without a warrant or even probable cause make protecting the innocent? Basically, wouldn't repealing the 4th amendment make it easier?"

He paused for a moment, looked me straight in the eye, and said, "Yes."

That's when I knew we are all in real danger. People grow up and join law enforcement, and it changes them, and they don't even see it.

dragonwriter• 13 years ago

Nothing in that story does anything to suggest that joining law enforcement changed that person, or changes people in general.

You seem to just be assuming that before he joined law enforcement, he had an attitude more similar to yours.

(And then there's the problem of generalization from this anecdote on top of that.)

korethr• 13 years ago

His answer doesn't surprise me terribly. It likely would be easier to stop criminals and protect innocent people from them if there were no 4th. To me, the more important question is "Do the potential benefits of repealing the 4th justify doing so in spite of the abuse that would result?"

When the answer to that question is "Yes", then we are truly in danger.

frank_boyd2• 13 years ago

I'd say that's the Police having lowered the barrier-to-entry to the lowest possible point: high school drop-outs with no education and/or thinking skills whatsoever. Sad and dangerous.

bendoernberg• 13 years ago

If you can't make it to the rally, consider chipping in a few bucks for a t-shirt to help us cover the overtime pay we're going to owe the stage and sound crew when the rally runs long: http://igg.me/at/stopwatchingus

todayiamme• 13 years ago

I quite frankly don't understand why anyone would condemn such acts of espionage. They are not only essential for a nation state to function successfully, but they are also a far superior way for the US to maintain its hegemony as compared to using acts of brute force.

Now I do not condone Orwellian spying on the citizens of your own republic, but this really is their job and it's quite impressive that they're this good at it. Especially given the fact that historically the US has not been completely invested in espionage and has favoured building up capacity after key events and quickly dismantling the apparatus once the emergency has passed. What these scandals are offering is a glimpse into a dramatic shift in the way the US conducts its affairs and that in of itself is quite noteworthy.

bobwaycott6• 13 years ago

In which you assume far too much:

- that espionage is required for a state to function successfully

- that maintaining US hegemony is both a national good and good for the world

- that brute force is the only other viable option to rampant surveillance

It is specifically because none of those things ought to be assumed, none of them are a given, and none are inherently good or desirable or required, that one ought to condemn these acts.

r00fus3• 13 years ago

Am I surprised that this covert activity is happening? No. I'm not even surprised by the scale.

What will be interesting to find is who's not in that list that should be.

Who are the puppet masters?

chmike• 13 years ago

I'm surprized that we are so bad at protecting our privacy, especily state leaders.

Volpe• 13 years ago

I'm not sure you can class it as "We are this good at it"... when it's being discussed publicly around the world, and the president is fielding calls from world leaders asking why they are being spied on.

Will all these defences of the NSA be repeated when we discover the Germans returning the favour?

oscargrouch• 13 years ago

US Hegemony = US shall rule over all nations of the world ? So US should own every country , because what, US is superior and the others inferiors?

And to maintain or to make this "hegemony" bigger they can use whatever tool they like to protect its own position of superiority and ruler.. really?

Im stunned by this speech and the ideology behind it.. its from people that believe in this dangerous (and ultra-right i must say) believes, that NSA is being feed of; and worst probably the US government has tons of politicians that think that way..

No wonder how the US get into this mess, and if it doesnt clear it up soon... things cant get pretty scary.. cause its way out of control.

Zigurd8• 13 years ago

One very big reason is that this intelligence has been used for industrial espionage. Our allies now know that when they bid against US companies, they will only get the contracts that are considered unprofitable by US companies.

That's not a good way to keep allies.

isaacdl2• 13 years ago

This is honestly the revelation that I worry about least in these NSA leaks. Isn't foreign surveillance basically the raison d'etre for the NSA?

lallysingh• 13 years ago

It may be one of the largest motivating factors in changing NSA practices, however. Pissed partners can lead to loss of trade, and the NSA suddenly becomes a campaign issue for the next round.

isaacdl2• 13 years ago

Hmm. That's a really good point, hadn't occurred to me. Good for us I guess, although I still don't think we can really lambaste them for doing something that's directly in their "charter". (As opposed to all the domestic surveillance, etc!)

npalli• 13 years ago

What is the strategy here? Of releasing information about NSA activities with foreign nations? Seems like it is mixing a potentially illegal activity (domestic spying) with their designated job. Doesn't every country try to do this. The NSA personnel could very well have undergone considerable risk to get this sort of thing going on. On the other hand, Joe public sees Snowden fleeing and chilling out in Russia/China and other "despotic" regimes.

Definitely Snowden:0 and NSA:1 in this case.

krapp5• 13 years ago

I think the Guardian is just trying to ride the NSA gravy train at this point.

junto4• 13 years ago

I disagree.

Within the UK, the general public has not favored the Guardian's reporting on the Snowden-NSA files. Many see it as anti-British and the much of the rest of the press has taken the government's side - quoting the government line concerning the protection of the country against terrorism and pedophiles.

What little the Guardian has been allowed to report (outside the D-Notice that covers GCHQ coverage) hasn't seen major coverage. The BBC for instance is petrified of losing its favourable role, and will not risk (again) threatening the government. Not in the near future anyway.

The Guardian's daily circulation figures since Snowden blew the whistle has continued to drop off [1]:

   Compared to the same period the year before, The Independent lost 26% of its
   daily audience. The other five losers, in descending order, were the Daily
   Star (-16%), The Guardian and Daily Express (-14%), Daily Mirror (-13%) and
   The Sun (-11%).

The actual month-by-month breakdowns are here:

- April 2013 [2]

- May 2013 [3]

- June 2013 [4]

- July 2013 [5]

- August 2013 [6]

- September 2013 [Not yet released]

Online is booming [7]. Back in January [8], the Guardian had already reported record online readership figures. I would hazard a guess that the online readership has continued to grow, but it isn't clear how many of those are from inside or outside the UK. The NSA reporting has no doubt improved the online bottom line, but not the ABC's.

At a minimum the ABC circulation figures (for print) seem to suggest that the Guardian has continued to see its readership shrink at a rate that is consistent with the entire UK press industry. The only upturn has been the Financial times which saw a 2% increase [1] for the same period.

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2013/aug/29/nati...

[2] http://www.theguardian.com/media/table/2013/may/10/abcs-nati...

[3] http://www.theguardian.com/media/table/2013/jun/07/abcs-nati...

[4] http://www.theguardian.com/media/table/2013/jul/15/abcs-nati...

[5] http://www.theguardian.com/media/table/2013/aug/09/abcs-nati...

[6] http://www.theguardian.com/media/table/2013/sep/06/abcs-nati...

[7] http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/sep/02/the-guardian

[8] http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/201...

spdy• 13 years ago

You are wrong its a 1:0 for Snowden. Now it`s not only the "common" people and how Merkel reacted is atypical for her.

Lets hope we see some actions out of this event at least the EU parliament set the first sign with voting against SWIFT.

XorNot4• 13 years ago

Merkel is reacting this way because it plays well with a group of people who don't realize that they're actually wildly outside of their field of expertise on an issue.

meepmorp2• 13 years ago

Yeah, I don't get this. Snowden made a point of distancing himself from indiscriminate leakers like Chelsea Manning. But this kind of stuff isn't legally dubious invasions of American citizens' privacy - it's foreign heads of state. Leaking this kind of information only seems to damage the US internationally.

subsection1h• 13 years ago

Definitely Snowden:0 and NSA:1 in this case.

You think this release definitely helps the NSA? If so, then you think Alexander, et al. are definitely happy about this release?

conductor2• 13 years ago

This is the top comment on the Reddit thread:

"They went after high ranking military officers. They went after members of congress. The Senate and the House - especially on the intelligence committees, and on the armed services committees and judicial. But they went after other ones too. They went after lawyers and law firms. Heaps of lawyers and law firms. They went after judges. One of the judges is now sitting on the supreme court that I had his wiretap information in my hand. Two are former FISA court judges. They went after state department officials. They went after people in the executive service that were part of the White House - their own people! They went after anti-war groups. They went after US companies that do international business around the world. They went after US banking firms and financial firms that do international business. They went after NGOs like the red cross and people like that that go overseas and do humanitarian work. They went after a few anti-war civil rights groups...

Now here's the big one. I haven't given you any names. This was in summer 2004. One of the papers that I held in my hand was to wiretap a bunch of numbers associated with a 40-something year old wanna-be Senator from Illinois. You wouldn't happen to know where that guy lives right now, would you? It's a big White House in Washington DC. That's who they went after. And that's the President of the United States now. And I could give you names of a bunch of different people they went after that I saw! The names and the phone numbers of congress. Not only the names but it looked like staff people too, and their staff. And not only their Washington office but back home in their congressional offices that they have in their home state offices and stuff like that. This thing is incredible what NSA has done. They've basically turned themselves - in my opinion - into a rogue agency that has J Edgar Hoover capabilities on a monstrous scale on steroids."

--former nsa officer Russ Tice...

June 20th interview on Boiling Frogs... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPyxeqcCjkc (full 1hr+ radio interview)

or watch 11 minute RT interview http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6m1XbWOfVk

pvnick2• 13 years ago

I remember this post being made here on HN around when the revelations first started coming out and we were still trying to collect ourselves and adjust to the new realities of omnipresent surveillance. It was on the front page and had a ton of upvotes. I really hope that Snowden has evidence of this. Whether he does or not is just about make-it-or-break-it for whether we'll see any real reform.

jessaustin3• 13 years ago

I can imagine a scenario in which even rock solid evidence of that sort wouldn't lead to real reform.

"Hello Senator thanks so much for meeting with us today. We understand you're considering co-sponsoring that new 'privacy' bill. We just wanted to take a few minutes of your time to emphasize some points that we feel have some bearing on the bill in question.

"I have here in front of me a few hard copies of some of your communications. I must say, they make for some interesting reading..."

junto4• 13 years ago

Makes sense as to why Obama flip-flopped on reigning in the NSA. Blackmail.

r00fus3• 13 years ago

The big question is, who controls this security state? The information is being collected, but who's the audience?

And what is their agenda?

slashdotaccount• 13 years ago

Information has become the most valueable thing. Whoever controls it, they surely do have much more power than any elected leader.

ojbyrne• 13 years ago

The primary agenda of any bureaucracy is to perpetuate that bureaucracy. The targets mentioned fit very well with that goal.

ChrisNorstrom• 13 years ago

The first thing people in power do, is make sure they stay in power. They can't have anyone changing anything that would cause waves and disruptions.

frank_boyd2• 13 years ago

Rule number 1: It's ALWAYS about the money.

The agenda is the protection of excessive money/wealth.

Which tells you where to look for "who's behind it": Rich people, very rich people. Also: The military-industrial complex.

And I honestly don't know how one can take down such a power structure that's in such an advanced stage.

I think it's like terminal cancer: it will only die when the host dies.

mythz• 13 years ago

Information is power and power is money. They can use it to protect themselves and control high-ranking officials to ensure, for instance, that they will always be well-founded to be able to continue unfettered in their mission to acquire even more information and power.

differentView2• 13 years ago

Does this mean an unknown person or group that has control of the NSA intelligence is effectively running the United States?

pyoung• 13 years ago

No, it means that the NSA can, and has, collected data on just about anyone. What they do with it, my guess is not much unless there is an actual national security threat, is still up for question.

belorn• 13 years ago

The surveillance service began their history by monitoring enemy armies, knowing what the troop movements were and locating potential weaknesses. Their purpose was to help the military in defending the nation.

They later grow to encompass international commerce, as that too related to national defense. Knowing where, how, and who are able to transport material in and out of countries is paramount in successful wars between nations. Of course, having access to private information in the international market, they were also able to start supporting their own nations companies and improve the nations ability to commercial out compete foreign companies.

Afterward, the next step was to encompass everyone in ubiquitous surveillance. Having a working social graph of their own citizen, as well as anyone else can very much relate to national defense, now called nation security. Knowing who might in 10 years become the next President of the United States is important, as otherwise the wrong candidate might get elected. Surveillance of news papers is also of paramount importance, as otherwise state officials won't have time to react to the fast pace of inquiries that otherwise might happen. Documents destined to be shredded could be laying around for just anyone to read.[¹]

The next step they took was a bit more bloody. Secret indefinitely incarceration, torture, and kill lists (The renamed Deathsquad of old). Using military force in targeting journalists, and publications.

I wish I know what the next stage is. The insight from the old big leaders of west Germany, USSR and China has not made any new innovations on this front. At most, they were better at scaling the last step up and increasing the size of the kill lists, torture chambers, and the nastiness of the military force against journalists. I wonder if the national security agency feel a need to go one up on this, and innovate further. The virtual strip search by massive radiation machines are a nice touch, but they surely can do more.

[¹]: http://snowdenandthefuture.info/

adventured3• 13 years ago

Virtual behavior modification and prediction. Inducing an entire culture to gradually change how it behaves, and its beliefs, through a mixture of opportunism on real events, simulated events, and trial balloons.

Some of that isn't new, but the ability to use vast computing resources to map behavior prediction of 300 million people to an accurate degree, is.

They no longer need your friends, family and neighbors to rat you out as a traitor (terrorist sympathizer?). They already know everything you have said, everywhere you have been, and everything you've done.

ARGUS is very new. And it's a required cornerstone of behavior control. They'll have a hard time dictating who you are, if they don't know where you are at all times.

The ideal fascist state is one of total compliance. A step forward for them would be to accomplish that with even less bloodshed, by essentially brain washing an entire culture toward a new way of thinking (war is peace, slavery is freedom). Not just empty slogans, posters, and fear, but actual belief across an entire culture.

When you look at the near complete lack of protest against the rise of the fascist state in America, you can see they're already well on their way to having accomplished that.

ihsw2• 13 years ago

The next step is bloodless, and the Stasi had it right.

By the 1970s, the Stasi had decided that methods of overt persecution which had been employed up to that time, such as arrest and torture, were too crude and obvious. It was realised that psychological harassment was far less likely to be recognised for what it was, so its victims, and their supporters, were less likely to be provoked into active resistance, given that they would often not be aware of the source of their problems, or even its exact nature. Zersetzung was designed to side-track and "switch off" perceived enemies so that they would lose the will to continue any "inappropriate" activities.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi#Zersetzung

Data mining is extremely useful and a significant technological leap, but data manipulation on a massive scale is definitely something to marvel at.

Facebook is already impersonating your friends and family by showing fraudulent "likes" (but hiding them from their owners so as to prevent discovery), now imagine that the people you respond to on reddit and HN aren't actually people but instead they're trojan horses -- bots meant to influence society by manipulating it. MSM will no longer be the only domain that our elite overlords encroach upon.

sesqu• 13 years ago

Disproportionate retaliation against insurgency has been popular at around that last stage of yours. It's not that innovative, though, and doesn't qualify as a step.

cmdkeen• 13 years ago

The FBI did this for decades - Hoover's level of corruption is truly scary. He had dirt on every incoming US President and most representatives for years, and would offer to help his chosen candidate during the election cycle.

But it ended with his death and there was a backlash from power. That's what doesn't make me worry about the NSA actually spying on US political figures.

As for them spying on foreigners - so what? It's been common knowledge for years that Western countries spy on each other, Echelon demonstrated that electronic means were being used to. The British ran a mole inside the German finance ministry for years - unsurprising when you consider the damage Black Wednesday did to the British economy.

pradocchia• 13 years ago

But it ended with his death and there was a backlash from power. That's what doesn't make me worry about the NSA actually spying on US political figures.

On the contrary, FBI Deputy Director W. Mark Felt brought down Nixon through the Washington Post, in his role as Deep Throat of Watergate fame.

This all happened after Hoover died in 72.

rsanders• 13 years ago

I have never been able to follow the logical step between "this is pretty obviously a bad thing" and "but it's okay and everybody should shut up about it because it was 'common knowledge' -- i.e. what we might have previously called conspiracy theories -- among some unspecified set of people who may or may not have been dismissed as tinfoil hat wearers".

omonra3• 13 years ago

I think we need a bit of context here. US is the hegemon.

Therefore it's not reasonable to apply same expectations of how it acts as we do pleasant little countries like Norway or Netherlands (who are probably only independent because US defended them against Germans & Soviets).

_b8r02• 13 years ago

You're right. Perhaps the US should be held to a higher standard than it's allies who are next door to their enemies. After all, the US is bordered on no sides by anyone other than cooperative, friendly countries, or countries that are less cooperative but have a US presence.

As for countries like Norway and the Netherlands being independent because the US defended them against Germans and Soviets, that's not strictly true. It was a team effort on all sides, and the team America eventually joined won, with great thanks and a great debt to the US effort, which as I understand was paid off.

bobwaycott6• 13 years ago

And hegemony is a dangerous thing that must be watched closely.

It is entirely reasonable to apply expectations to all countries that they not operate in ways that encroach upon the sovereignty and privacy of other nations, especially their allies or even less friendly nations with whom a declared state of war does not exist.

The hegemon ought answer to a much stricter standard than the "pleasant little countries" who do not wield such power.

Hegemony does not implicitly grant universal assent to be a total asshole.

XorNot4• 13 years ago

You realize the first thing you do if you're going to attack someone is tell them one thing and then do another, right?

And that a country's leaders are replaceable components - the country doesn't have a personality, it has a government of thousands of individuals, all who subtly bias its aggregate behaviour in different ways, and whom the replacement of various members can fundamentally alter the country's goals, agenda and long-term interests against other countries?

How then, do you intend to maintain your own security if you've decided to simply take the word of one country's government - again, a shifting gestalt of thousands of individuals and millions of citizens goals - as naively true, when there is absolutely no reason or even motivation for that country not to simply lie to you - likely in many cases without even realizing it, as the messengers don't have the situational-awareness to understand the context of the message.

grey-area9• 13 years ago

Hegemony depends on the tacit consent of those ruled.

If the US treats the rest of the world as an enemy, and a playground for its war machine and surveillance apparatus, it can expect at some point to earn the enmity of the people in all the countries where it has interfered. This has already happened in the Middle East, East Africa, and South America.

By these actions the US is undermining the only friends it has in the world, and is becoming increasingly isolated.

donquichotte2• 13 years ago

"One of the great American tragedies is to have participated in a just war." Kurt Vonnegut

omonra3• 13 years ago

I'd say US has a petty good record in the 20th century:

WWI WWII Cold War

All won. And for the latter two (I personally think Germany losing WWI was the worst thing that happened to Europe), I am 100% on the side of the US (particular tactics notwithstanding).

vidarh6• 13 years ago

The Soviets did enter Norway towards the end of world war II, in order to defeat the German forces in the North. They then voluntarily withdrew, to the surprise of a lot of people, but seemingly without much US interference.

(The Norwegian response was rather disgusting: Remains of fallen Soviet soldiers were dug up from burial grounds all over the place and sent up the coast to be reburied closer to the border, in order to not have to let Soviet officers further into the country for memorial services etc. out of fear of spying..)

And you are right, our expectations might be different. But that does not mean that it is any more acceptable and that it will not affect the way people will deal with US diplomats and officials in the future:

Now we know that giving US officials phone numbers means those numbers will get monitored. So any government official wishing to give US officials a number now, will think twice, and then probably hand them numbers set aside exclusively for communications with the US, and will be reminded every time that the reason for doing this is that we can't trust US officials, because the US government does not trust us enough to not monitor us.

adeptus• 13 years ago

On the "is not monitoring and will not monitor"... If they took the time to deny present and future monitoring, the obvious question then becomes why haven't they denied past/recent past monitoring? Oh that's right, because they can't in fact deny it as they WERE monitoring.

vidarh6• 13 years ago

Personally, I think it is misdirection. Why should we assume they are not willing to lie? More likely, in my opinion, is that they deny the present and future to make us think it used to happen, but just maybe might have stopped. Is there really any reason to assume they've stopped?

I mean, if they're not capable of lying convincingly, they'd make pretty shitty spies.

spurgu• 13 years ago

I don't understand the bulk of comments being about this not being important. Or... well yeah, I understand the perspective that any intelligence agency should be collecting intelligence, so this shouldn't be a surprise per se. But this certainly levels out the playing field in that now the world knows at which lengths the NSA has been keeping tabs on people, and at least the majority of world leaders (and a lot of more "insignificant" people) will start using encrypted communications and networks like Tor. Which they should've been doing from the start. So, in this light, I think this is an important Snowden revelation.

ACow_Adonis• 13 years ago

Presumably this will soon be followed up by other ground-breaking journalism pieces such as "Army kills people", "Surgeons perform surgery", and "Garbage collectors stun world by collecting garbage".

Irrespective of what one thinks of it (and I do not think favourably of it), how is it surprising that an organisation that is established specifically to spy on people is in fact spying on people?

bobwaycott6• 13 years ago

Perhaps because foreign leaders do not consider tapping the phone lines of our allies to be within the scope of NSA's stated mission "to gain a decision advantage for the Nation and our allies under all circumstances."[1]

Or maybe because SigInt is supposed to be working "for intelligence and counterintelligence purposes and to support military operations."[1] They might not get why tapping their phones supports America's military operations, or why the US wouldn't just schedule a meeting/call to for "intelligence and counterintelligence purposes".

Might be that some fail to see how this qualifies as "operations to defeat terrorists and their organizations at home and abroad, consistent with U.S. laws and the protection of privacy and civil liberties."

There are wide-open channels for gaining intelligence from the leaders of allied countries. We've been using them for a while. They work pretty well.

The NSA is causing the US to look like it's the distrustful mate who is sneakily combing through his partner's texts, emails, messages, and other media to assure himself he can trust his partner.

The world is, perhaps, not liking the feeling of being spied on.

[1] http://www.nsa.gov/about/mission/

ceejayoz9• 13 years ago

How on earth is knowing the internal dealings of foreign governments not "gaining a decision advantage for the Nation"?!

jessaustin3• 13 years ago

I can understand why "world leaders" would be frustrated by this, but much better them than us. This activity is at least plausibly within NSA's purview. Also, most of these leaders have less at risk to the NSA threat than do USA residents. It isn't as though NSA will sic the Drug Warriors, the IP Mafia, BATF, ICE, or EPA on leaders of other sovereign nations based on its observation of their communications. Whereas we're definitely in those crosshairs.

There are exceptions! If your nation could plausibly be on deck for the next military-industrial complex fundraising activity, you might want your leaders to secure their communications against NSA. Of course, if they're not doing anything wrong, they might want that fact to be observed, on the off chance it might make a difference.

pvnick2• 13 years ago

Watch as the flag-all-NSA-stories brigade pushes this relevant story off the front page...

aspensmonster• 13 years ago

I'm pleasantly surprised that it's not already on the bottom of the second page, headed towards the third. Between the flagging brigades and "flamewar detectors," I'm sure it will get there sooner than later.

Zigurd8• 13 years ago

The suppression of NSA stories on HN is an act of monumental stupidity. If we find 10-15 years from now that US technology, infrastructure, and services are shunned around the world it will come down to them cooperating with the NSA.

krylonkid5• 13 years ago

Australia and Canada have info sharing deals with the NSA but their citizens are not mad at their governments. Germans howl when a US military base might close. Serious cognitive dissonance does not deserve endless vapid repetition and HN users rightly flag such nonsense.

Theodores• 13 years ago

We have ended up with the same conversations on this spying lark far too often.

I appreciate the sentiment of those that want to protest against this and I can understand the spoon-fed arguments about how the NSA must go after the kiddie fiddlers, terrorists that want to blow up innocent kiddies (as in the ones that haven't been fiddled with, yet) and do all that mysterious national security stuff.

However, instead of same-old, same-old, can we work on a technological solution? Something that will work for you and I as well as Mrs Merkel?

We can let go the network analysis stuff, who is in contact with whom as right now there is no easy way to prevent the NSA slurping that stuff up. But, as for the content, can't that be encrypted properly, without the NSA having the key and without there being secret courts where keys get handed over in secret? It is just code we need, and with it we can get a reasonable compromise where our conversations are secure.

coldcode• 13 years ago

It used to be spying on other people's governments would get people killed or start wars. In some way it will again. Maybe not so obvious this time.

a3n• 13 years ago

No non-US government official can feel secure in giving just a business card to his US counterpart, because he has to assume his contact info will be given to the NSA.

Hell, no one, regardless of nationality, in or out of government, can fell secure in any communication of any kind with a US government person.

chunkyslink• 13 years ago

One way to tell if they are still doing it. Give them honeypots, hook them and wheel them in.

grey-area9• 13 years ago

This has some interesting implications:

What would this information be useful for? Why was the NSA collecting this information and at whose request? Is the same being done to US politicians?

The most useful applications of this I can think of are betraying allies, manipulating negotiations with rival trade blocs, economic espionage, and of course protecting the power of the agencies who perform this surveillance and the lucky few who are given strictly limited access to it.

If the POTUS is given this intelligence and makes most of his decisions based on it, how does he know that he is being given the truth, rather than a carefully edited version of it?

It seems surveillance is no longer focussed on terrorism, if it ever was (indeed a few terrorist attacks have gone on the US without detection in spite of all this surveillance). It's telling that even the NSA have given up using that excuse as it becomes more and more clear where the focus of their intelligence gathering is directed.

Is the NSA (and the US by proxy) using the information it collects as a way of protecting and expanding its power? Is this inevitable if you give an organisation that much power over our lives and very little oversight?

Are all allies of the US mistrusted so much that they must be spied on? Should they in return shut down trust of the US and repudiate treaties they have with it like the one sharing SWIFT data or details of people visiting the US? Can the EU trust the products of American internet companies, or should they set up rivals?

It seems information has become more and more synonymous with power as our economies in the west become information economies, and the greatest power of all has been handed to an agency without significant legal limits and without any sort of public accountability, led by a member of the military.

sfjailbird• 13 years ago

In the 1970s it was well known that the CIA worked to pave the way for American business interests overseas, through everything from espionage to blackmail, murder and military interventions. I assume the NSA works much the same way today (but God knows what all the domestic spying is used for).

grey-area9• 13 years ago

In the 1970s it was well known that the CIA worked to pave the way for American business interests overseas, through everything from espionage to blackmail, murder and military interventions.

I don't think this is the way countries should conduct themselves, particularly not ones which trumpet their freedom and liberty. Either the US can employ cynical realpolitik while making hypocritical statements about fighting for civilisation and freedom and live with the consequences, or it can aspire to live up to the ideals it claims to stand for. There's only so much hypocrisy you can employ as an empire before the hollow nature of your statements undermines your authority with allies and citizens alike, and exposure like this is inevitable when the lie becomes big enough.

but God knows what all the domestic spying is used for

I imagine for exactly the same ends, minus the military aspect, which is reserved for overseas at present (though also employed on US citizens abroad). If a politician wants to dismantle the extremely useful and effective spy apparatus, they are likely to find it turned against them first.

angersock• 13 years ago

Hell, we did that going back a hundred years for the Banana Wars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_Wars). This is sadly not news.

gambiting• 13 years ago

After the crash of the Polish president's plane in Smolensk, it was widely known that the Americans have recordings of all conversations made with his satellite phone aboard the plane. I don't remember that sparking much controversy at the time, everyone was more like "yup, that's what Americans do" and there was pretty much no outrage over that.

cateye• 13 years ago

I really can't believe that there are so many comments that try to trivialize the actions.

It seems that the United States loses the reality and lapses in an egocentric / ethnocentric disease.

How would the U.S. react if they found out such a thing the other way around?

wyclif• 13 years ago

'After Merkel's allegations became public, White House press secretary Jay Carney issued a statement that said the US "is not monitoring and will not monitor" the German chancellor's communications.'

Which, of course, was a blatant lie.

ethanazir2• 13 years ago

I might think everyone should have access to all communications of all politicians. If you want to be a leader of millions you should be transparent.

jmilloy2• 13 years ago

I feel we are taking our eyes off the ball.

Domestic spying violates constitutional rights. More to the point, I don't want to support an institution with programs that violate my privacy, no matter what benefits such programs provide.

But isn't international spying is different? Honestly, I don't mind supporting an institution with an external espionage programs. Isn't in my best interest? Does it harm me? What are the concrete repercussions of spying on foreign officials? Are these officials really going to renege on international alliances because they have a chip on their shoulder? If they have anything to hide, it's by definition counter to US interests; if our allies are making plans behind our backs, I want our government to find out. (And to be totally honest, if our government is making secret plans behind our allies backs, I would want our allies to find out, as well.)

I'll repeat this, because it is a real question, and the answer could have a real effect on my opinion: What are the concrete repercussions of spying on foreign officials?

00rion2• 13 years ago

If we are justified in spying on foreigners, then foreigners are justified in spying on us. If foreign intelligence agencies have records of all the emails, phone calls, metadata, etc. of US citizens, what's to stop them from handing that information to the NSA and vice versa?

grey-area9• 13 years ago

Possible concrete repercussions include:

Refusal of the EU bloc to cooperate over sharing banking and passenger data, and potentially other treaties down the line

Refusal of large South American nations to do trade deals or negotiate with the US, and a decline in US influence in the region

A move away from American dominance of the internet, and a reluctance to use companies with servers based in based in the US

The decline of the American empire, which is based on the tacit consent of the nations within their alliances like NATO (this one is more a long term potential outcome).

jmilloy2• 13 years ago

Okay. Thanks.

Refusal of the EU bloc to cooperate...

Sharing of banking and passenger data is not something I know a lot about. Why do countries share this data now, and why would they stop because their prime minister is being spied upon? How the spying affect the pros and cons of sharing the data?

Refusal of large South American nations to do trade deals...

Can you explain why a South American nation would not make a trade deal that made sense economically because of foreign espionage? How do the economics change as a result of the espionage?

A move away from American dominance of the internet...

Who would avoid using servers based in the US as a result of espionage of 35 specific foreign officials? We're not talking about normal EU citizens in this particular article.

The decline of the American empire...

Again, what decisions will countries make differently? Are countries going to make decisions that are not in their best interests in order to spite the US? Or are they already making decisions that are not in their best interests in order to be nice to the US, but won't anymore? Neither of these seems likely.

KMag• 13 years ago

I thought that the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement) were the only nations the NSA was even pretending to not spy on.

It's my understanding that the British were thought to have stolen submarine detection technology from the French, and the French were widely accused of industrial espionage against US companies in the 1990s. I also vaguely remember a 60 Minutes piece in the 1990s about Germans fulfilling their military service obligations by committing industrial espionage against US companies.

It seems to me that politicians are playing to public opinion, while knowing full well that this is how the international relations game has been played for decades, if not forever.

malandrew• 13 years ago

If I were the leader of a major world power right now, I would push for a law in my country that decriminalizes the hacking of any government systems of countries that have proven hostile to my countries government. The only exception would be the hacking of public infrastructure like transportation systems and public utilities. Everything else would be fair game. Seems like this approach would introduce and element of M.A.D. into the mix that would mitigate the current hostile actions we are seeing from the US via the NSA and China via the PLA.

njharman• 13 years ago

Gee, I thought the government shutdown had succeeded in getting everyone to forget this whole spy hullabaloo. Well at least it worked in the good old USA.

sheikhimran01• 13 years ago

I believe NSA is as much important as Android is to Google.

NSA monitored calls of 35 world leaders

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