Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by mattie_p on Tuesday February 25 2014, @06:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the I'm-not-directly-spying-on-you dept.

Angry Jesus writes:

"German language magazine 'Bild am Sonntag' reports that, in response to Obama's recent order to stop spying on Angela Merkel and other heads of 'friendly' states, the NSA has instead ramped up spying on everybody Merkel communicates with. Cory Doctorow points out that this action demonstrates that the NSA is out of control and deliberately disobeying a presidential order with a level of duplicity worthy of a four year-old."

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 1) by starcraftsicko on Tuesday February 25 2014, @03:44PM

    by starcraftsicko (2821) on Tuesday February 25 2014, @03:44PM (#6670) Journal

    I mean come on. My 4th ammendment right doesn't just disappear because those children in power play silly games with legal logic like that.

    Right. The NSA & their cousins are way over the line, but its important to understand where the line is. Surveillance of foreign government figures is completely different than dragnet surveillance of 'everyone'.

    And even if this childish spying was limited to 'politically interesting' people like advisors to world leaders- does even that make sense? When you become an advisor to a world leader, do you just give up your right to be treated respectfully and decently by the world powers at large?

    It makes sense. The behaviour and motivations of governments are of interest to other governments. Once could infer that the surveillance represents the respect of those foreign governments. When you play at a different level, you come under a different level of scrutiny. Think major leagues vs minor leagues vs semi-pro vs little league.

    ...sacrifice their personal privacy because they decided they wanted to be a significant part of their democratic government. That is so bogus. That can only lead to a withering of the pool of political advisors down to the people who just don't give a frack about their own, or anyone else's privacy. That can't be a good thing for our global human society.

    The alternative is to have political advisors and leaders with a "right" to rule the world in secret. Think it through. When you reach the level of guiding a nation-state, your actions are substantially more than the actions of an individual. Your efforts deserve more scrutiny.

    There has to be a better way...

    The NSA and its cousins need to be curtailed, but your secret society is probably not an achievable outcome. In the case of the NSA and US constitutional law, dragnet surveillance is clearly an overreach. The part that is unacceptable however is not even the surveillance, but the formal link between the NSA as an element of NATIONAL DEFENCE, and agencies like the FBI or DEA which conduct domestic LAW ENFORCEMENT. The worse part of that link is the formal policy of concealment - even perjury - implied by the process of PARALLEL CONSTRUCTION.

    We must not let utopian ideals and angst distract us from the smoking gun.

    --
    This post was created with recycled electrons.