Comment by cletus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cletus | Hacker News Reader

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So two things should be absolutely clear here:

1. Chinese companies are extensions of the state in a way not analagous to anything in the developed world. This creates a valid national security interest in giving Chinese companies access to telecoms (Huawai), personal information (TikTok) and many other areas; and

2. There is no huge market opportunity in China for Western companies so these companies should stop pressuring politicians to look the other way on China (and, arguably in some cases, to kowtow to beijing). The Chinese government will ensure no Western company "wins" against homegrown companies, all the while dangling that carrot of 1B customers and handout out enough crumbs to keep interest.

As for this lawsuit, I'm no lawyer so can't speak to its merit but consider this: trade agreements (WTO/GATT) call for reciprocity. In trade terms, I'd say the US is well within its right to deny access to the US market to Chinese companies in the same way US companies are denied access to the Chinese market.

Enforcement of censorship in China is painted as just obeying local laws. Ok, but what's to stop the US arguing that they require companies operating within its borders not to enable spying on citizens, religious persecution and other human rights violations?

So much ignorance here.

1) China is very developed and developing fast. US companies are also extensions of the state, especially when things like National Security Letters come into play. There’s no transparency or oversight (or constitutional rights) when NSLs are involved. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_security_letter Note: there are rules, but rule violations (that we know about) numbered in the thousands a decade ago.

2) Apple is going to lose _a lot_ of current and future customers in China if the WeChat/Tencent ban moved forward, to name just one $2 trillion example.

You’re right about one thing: if we want to go after China, we should be using a principled approach on trade.

Could the U.S. govt not subpoena a U.S. company for information, giving them the same power people are worried about China having?

They can, but since they have to go through the courts, the process is much more difficult and there are more opportunities for someone (like the media) to find out about it.

It isn't binary, the powers would never be the same even if they sound similar.

Do the FISA courts or National Security Letters count as an open court with opportunity for the media to find out about it?

What if the US State Department uses PRISM or a related program instead?

They are still courts. They are still presided by judges, you can't just get approval without justification or a paper trail. They still leak like crazy to the media.

And again, it isn't binary. You can't say the USA and China's systems are just as bad, one is much worse than the other even if neither is perfect or even good.

You completely ignored my second point.

As for FISA court, the government is allowed to destroy the paper trail and the public is not allowed to know the justification, so it might as well not exist.

Also, the NSA spying on US citizens illegally and covertly without a warrant is worse than a public Chinese courts, undeniably.

Your point that fisa courts, which are considered an unnecessary western luxury in the Chinese system and have restricted usage in the USA system somehow make the American system as bad as China? And then you mention PRISM, a system that takes and stores photographs of passports (for all I can find on the web, you don’t bother to provide your own links), as somehow worse or as worse as the Chinese system?

No, you are just incorrect here. You can’t really compare a country that doesn’t even subscribe to the ideal of rule of law as being somehow equivalent to one that does and has actual enshrined rights and an independent judiciary to back them up. Yes, the USA could be a lot better, but it doesn’t have much in common with a characteristically illiberal system.

>Your point that fisa courts, which are considered an unnecessary western luxury in the Chinese system and have restricted usage in the USA system somehow make the American system as bad as China?

Yup, restricted as in asking multiple companies to give away almost all of their data. A ton of restraint, limiting yourself to the very minimum of data, such as oh I don't know the entirety of phone call logs for every single user? That makes it functionally as bad as China.

As for PRISM, I think you missed the mark almost entirely. Glenn Greenwald, after contact with Snowden, gave a description that goes something like this :

"Also according to The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald even low-level NSA analysts are allowed to search and listen to the communications of Americans and other people without court approval and supervision. Greenwald said low level Analysts can, via systems like PRISM, "listen to whatever emails they want, whatever telephone calls, browsing histories, Microsoft Word documents.[30] And it's all done with no need to go to a court, with no need to even get supervisor approval on the part of the analyst"

Does that seem like a system that takes and stores photographs of passports? This is literally the #1 Google result for PRISM, by the way.

>No, you are just incorrect here. You can’t really compare a country that doesn’t even subscribe to the ideal of rule of law as being somehow equivalent to one that does and has actual enshrined rights and an independent judiciary to back them up. Yes, the USA could be a lot better, but it doesn’t have much in common with a characteristically illiberal system.

Something said very confidently for someone that doesn't know how FISA courts operate or anything about the PRISM program. I don't think "* low-level NSA analysts are allowed to search and listen to the communications of Americans and other people without court approval and supervision*" reflects "enshrined rights and an independent judiciary to back them up". But calling dragnet spying without a warrant characteristically liberal is an interesting take.

All in all, you seem very willing to defend the US Government without having the most basic knowledge of their abuse. It is impossible to evaluate the Chinese vs US practices in reality if you have a stereotypical view of one and an at best theoretical view of the other.

As for the source, you'll find it quite obvious : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)#E...

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