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Comment by omginternets | Hacker News Reader

I noted that Apple says the governments in question are allies of the United States. I wonder if this is a case of American intelligence outsourcing the surveillance of American citizens to foreign intelligence. If that is indeed the case, I’d expect a quid pro quo.

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> I wonder if this is a case of American intelligence outsourcing the surveillance of American citizens to foreign intelligence. If that is indeed the case, I’d expect a quid pro quo.

Yet it is the US government who revealed it: "In a letter to the Department of Justice, Senator Ron Wyden said foreign officials were demanding the data from Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) Google and Apple (AAPL.O). Although details were sparse, the letter lays out yet another path by which governments can track smartphones." - https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/governments...

> Yet it is the US government who revealed it

Less "the government" and more "a member of government", the same member who has revealed and demanded accountability when discovering domestic government overreach.

We should choose our congress critters carefully.

Indeed. But government is also a process and in this case I think it is fair to say that the process is leading to good outcomes (transparency, accountability).

It doesn't seem like enough. The PATRIOT act has been on the books for 20+ years now and we only rarely get a peek at what it's being used for. James Clapper (in)famously lied to Congress[1] and still got to keep his job, so I'm not sure about accountability either.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clapper#Testimony_to_Con...

Congress has so little power its becoming a vestigial organ. Only there to placate the masses who believe their vote makes any impact.

This is some wacko BS. Congress has tons of power which can impact your daily lives. If you think it doesn't have that power, you're just not well read on the subject. If you think modern day politics of us vs them divisiveness gives the impression that they cannot do any thing is a dangerous interpretation. It's also a bit sophomoric of an interpretation as well.

Congress very much has too much power. If it was a fighting game character, it would be the overpowered character people would want banned.

Repeatedly Congress has shown that it's checks and balances have more power than others. If Congress picks the supreme court and there are multiple ways for a massed power to keep it's power then nobody else has any real power. The US system is actually rather poorly designed in that form.

>We should choose our congress critters carefully.

Agreed 100% and sadly, quite rare. I'm not going to start naming names, because that would devolve this into a political conversation about the parties. That isn't this. I suspect most people know who the criminals are. Now to see if they care.

It is a testament to our checks and balances, which, while far from perfect, are useful in preventing somewhat one branch from getting too much power.

I think people put way to much trust it political institutions, at least at the scale of national, which are, for the most part, only really used to protect a certain classes of people, the people who run it.

The problem with corruption is scale, when you have too large of an institution, it's easier to hide intent. I don't see how you can police that by voting when so much of what goes on is not easily seen.

For every persons that gets voted in to do the right thing, there are 4 others who are doing the wrong thing.

Wyden is far removed from the part of the government which engages in surveillance. He's the same person who was questioning James Clapper in Congress about mass surveillance before the Snowden leaks [1].

[1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=QwiUVUJmGjs

That's how they circumvent the ban on domestic spying. The US spies on Australians* and the Australians spy on US citizens, then they exchange the data. Easy.

*And/or other Five Eyes members.

Five Eyes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes

"democracies allied to the United States." - includes India too.

Maybe so, but it seems clear that the surveillance goes both ways: https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2023-09-23/us-dip...

Except that India is not spying on US Government but its own Apple/Google users.

Yep sounds like five eyes.

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