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Comment by allemagne | Hacker News Reader

NSA recruiters came to a class I had in college. I imagine Facebook employees would have the same sort of party line drilled into them.

Yes the NSA takes privacy very seriously. The NSA spies on everyone else but doesn't spy on Americans, period. Oh, well yeah of course we collect data from Americans but if we find out we are looking at an American's data we're supposed to throw it away immediately.

Throw in a harmless joke about "big scary NSA" to lighten the mood. Nice salary, nice benefits. Most of the students ask for applications after class, it's a career forum for area studies majors and this is by far the most lucrative job presented in the semester.

It's honestly pretty easy to make a deal with the devil, especially if you're smart enough to argue that he's not the devil.

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I never got why HN are angry at NSA since they spy on Americans. Spying on me (non-American) is okay, but spying on an American is wrong?

I feel just as violated as any American by the thought of NSA spying me.

What astonishes me the most is the absolute double standards US government has on this issue. you are US government and it is perfectly fine spying and collecting data from people and organizations outside US jurisdiction. You are a person outside US jurisdiction and have an unauthorized look on US government data, and US government tries to get you extradicted to US and to face charges?!?[1] That just makes morally zero sense to me.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauri_Love

It's the same with drone strikes. If you look at the recent controversies about the drone program in the US, it's all about how Obama authorized drone strikes on an American. Illegally assassinating non Americans without any form of trial or due process is perfectly fine.

1. An American is anyone living in America, (?citizen or not?).

2. A US entity is tasked with info collection on the rest of the world (and is good at it).

3. US entities funded by the US have rules that prevent them from spying on those who fund them.

Completely understandable and predictable.

We are discussing morality and ethics here. Almost all such scenarios can be explained and accounted for by the unsymmetrical distribution of power, including that of the spying of US agencies on American citizens. Indeed, it is completely understandable and predictable given the way the US government is structured. Governments(or any institutions for that matter) tend to act in their own self interest first and foremost, not of their citizens.

> The NSA spies on everyone else but doesn't spy on Americans, period.

Ah, so that's settled then. So, spying on normal people and prying into their private lives is ethical - as long as they aren't American?

What about American expats? How does the NSA distinguish between them and non-Americans?

What about the Five Eyes? Perhaps the NSA doesn't read about your juicy personal life but GCHQ does because the NSA handed Americans' private data over to them?

You'd have to be pretty blind to not see they in fact are the devil.

I'm thinking a lot of people misread GP

> if we find out we are looking at an American's data we're —supposed— to throw it away.

Keyword emphasized, and anyway ahat safeguards are there to ensure that they won't turn against "undesirable" Americans at any point in the future?

Like how the American citizens of Japanese origin were more-or-less extra-judicially just herded into camps back around WWII, and the perceived "risk factor" of American Muslims right now.

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