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Comment by durpleDrank | Hacker News Reader

I don't want to be that guy but as scary and threatening as this all sounds if you just flip the script you can gain some empathy for citizens of every country the NSA spied on. For once, Americans and Europeans are starting to fear the same "invasion" that the rest of the world has been feeling for a while now. I just hope my countries team wins I guess?

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People have been using this line of reasoning in the last few years of tensions with Russia. I personally find it very irritating. NSA and CIA have some very bad points on their track records, so that means we need to excuse every other bad actor regardless of frequency and degree? Even if due process in the US is flawed or has slipped up in the past, it's still better than a lot of people get.

The implication is that our own shit has to be 100% spotless before we ask others to improve. Perfection doesn't exist, so that ends up being an excuse for nobody to improve.

I don't think many expect perfection. But instead think of the NSA and CIA as VERY far from perfection.

That's kind of a weird point to make since the NSA spies on Americans and Europeans too.

Ah that would be illegal. The NSA asks Australia to spy on Americans and report back and visa versa. Which is not against the spirit of the law at all /s.

Just so people out of the loop understand: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/20/us-uk-secret-d... The british government actually encouraged and even paid 100 million dollars for the nsa(cia) to spy on their citizens.

While china's surveillance system is scary because it's in public, what might actually be more dangerous is the massive surveillance campaigns the US is carrying out. The US is more than happy to provide surveillance to all 5 eye countries.

What? No, not weird at all, the spying on Americans is in behalf of America, e.g. the NSA never gonna help with intel about how to attack America itself but they do so for enemy countries, or maybe just report about it for allies territories -in case allies stop being so in the near future-

I think OP is referring to the spying / invasion of privacy itself as the aggression, not anything subsequent.

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