It gets a bit complicated with the whole 5-eyes mutual back scratching thing though.
Because USA is good, so if they are the ones doing the spying, it's just for pretty legit reasons, while chinese people don't speak english so they clearly are up to no good /s
But duh, of course it's bad when someone else spies on you! That can only make you less safe.
It's not about "ok", it's about winning the "war".
For me, USA is the more imminent danger, so I don't understand why people aren't equally appalled.
the answer here is the difference between "me" and "people"
after all, humans have a tendency to think other people think the same way they do
There is no such thing as an “allied intelligence agency”, by their very nature all non-US intelligence agencies are hostile to American citizens.
Thus, our domestic agencies conspiring with hostile foreign entities to defraud and undermine the citizens of the United States is treason.
To characterize the UK as an enemy of the US simply isn't true, the US and the UK are not at war; the UK government is not openly hostile to America. If an American gives classified information to the UK they could be convicted of espionage, but treason specifically would not stick. Not even close. Even attempting it would be a complete farce.
Treason charges couldn't even stick during the Cold War, when America and the Soviet Union were engaged in numerous proxy wars but weren't officially at war with each other. Many Americans sold secrets to the Soviet Union, got caught, and were convicted of espionage. But not treason. The Rosenbergs, who gave American nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union? Convicted and executed for conspiracy to commit espionage, not treason. John Walker and his son, US Navy officers who helped the Soviets decrypt millions of messages? Convicted of espionage, but not treason. Jerry Whitworth, Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen.. the list goes on. Convicted of espionage but not treason. The last treason convictions to ever happen in America were for acts committed during WW2.
"The existence of, and participation in, FVEY is espionage against the people of the United States."
If so, then presumably all the arguments against it are still valid, no? Assuming we can agree that "treason against the people of the United States" and "espionage against the people of the United States" are at least in the same ballpark of badness?
No, because again, these crimes have meanings defined by law which you can't simply replace with a meaning derived from the layperson understanding of the word. To argue that Five Eyes is the illegal kind of espionage, you'd have to argue that it actually violates the Espionage Act. Merely fitting it to the colloquial meaning of 'espionage' isn't sufficient.
What exactly is the objection to classifying some information as SECRET//US,UK,CAN,AUS,NZ instead of SECRET//NOFORN ?
Essentially what they’ve done is commit treason by colluding with hostile foreign powers to mutually spy on each others citizens, bypassing the pesky constitutional/charter limitations in the process.
In the right political climate we could Nuremberg trial 5 levels deep into the organizations responsible, I’m hopeful for that outcome.
Reminder: “I was just following orders/policy” wasn’t a defense then and it won’t be this time either.
If they are doing it, where's your evidence? You don't have it because otherwise, Klayman would have filed a lawsuit.