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Comment by pyvpx | Hacker News Reader

this is so intellectually lazy. you don't have to look very hard at Cisco (and many other "US" companies) to find Five Eyes assistance embedded in their products (either purposefully or by willful ignorance)

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I'm not at all denying that Cisco and others might be a gateway to five eyes. But there's also the fact that there is incredibly more oversight in 'five eyes' countries, and of course they are 'my side'. I naturally care less about 'us' spying on 'them' than I do 'them' spying on 'me'.

There is more oversight in the five eyes countries, but that isn’t as reassuring as it sounds. Is anyone in those countries comfortable with what those organisation do and how they are controlled?

There is more oversight because a) 5 eyes are all democracies and b) there are elected bodies that have direct oversight of these activities. For example, in the US, there are both House and Senate committees which have oversight into various bodies and operations which are highly secretive. Example [1]

Finally, c) there is an open and free press, and quite a number of whistle blowers and informants to the press, which have legal protection.

That's very different from an authoritarian entity that answers to no-one, and does what they please.

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

As natural as it might be, it's wrong. If you are, for example, a US resident, the US government is in a great position to use any information they have about you. The Chinese government, not so much, especially if you have no desire or plans to travel to China.

what if you have skeletons in your closet (infidelity, drug use, fetishes, etc.), and China used them as leverage to get you to do stuff against your employer?

> Five Eyes assistance embedded in their products

You don't see the Five Eyes nations harvesting organs of their citizens.

Would you like me to list the other human rights violations China commits?

Your reasoning makes no sense:

China violates human rights therefore it is OK for the Five Eyes nations to spy on people?

Your reasoning structurally unsound.

That’s a what-aboutism. The organisations that participate in five-eyes are just as opaque as their Chinese counterparts from a citizens perspective and they have been monitoring their own populations. This aspect of five eyes government behaviour is uncomfortably close to Chinese government behaviour in my view.

Obviously China’s human rights record is abysmal, and the five eyes countries are vastly closer to civilised.

Five Eyes operate under political oversight (various committees of elected officials), the rule of law and an independent judiciary, there is a free press with protected informants, whistle blowers etc. etc.. Quite different than an authoritarian system.

I am very far from convinced of these things. The complete lack of transparency and the dubious things that have happened and been revealed by the likes of Wikileaks lead me to believe that their oversight is deeply flawed.

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