U.S. Orders Intelligence Agencies to Step Up Spying on Greenland | Hacker News Reader

U.S. Orders Intelligence Agencies to Step Up Spying on Greenland

wsj.com

36 pointsbookofjoe15 comments

>The classified message asked agencies, whose tools include surveillance satellites, communications intercepts and spies on the ground

Spies on the ground? In Greenland? The largest town has less than 20K people in it! Who do we have on the ground there, the town gossip? A member of the PTA? Bartender at the pub?

Got to keep those spy satellites tasked on them or we might miss major events like Poul repainting his house a different color.

The script for Top Secret II is being reworked as we sit here. Ive seen an advance copy and Instead of a cow disguise it will be a seal and the hero nearly clubbed to death.

(Greenland doesn’t club seals - I looked it up, but that’s comedy)

Actually why not ?

If you think a bit longer term, and you're able to put say 100 people there, there might be able to subtly influence the public opinion rather easily. And this public might in turn later vote to join US and said US could come to the rescue.

I believe that's pretty much the plan - try to win the population, which is very small, by any means necessary - bribe (they already tried apparently), sow discord, find a common issue you agree on etc.

Having 00s of people on the ground, trained in the local language and customs, seems a very expensive, ineffective way to influence public opinion of a town.

Many (most?) people spend much of their leisure time on social media, why should Greenlanders be any different?

The administration is probably playing 4d chess here. They know something we don't.

Quote: "The president has been very clear that the US is concerned about the security of Greenland". Says the president who is the only one who has made open threats against it. Lol

Sounds too much like "Nice country you have there. Would be a shame if something happened to it". Or the old classic "We're taking you over for your own protection"

I wouldn’t put it out of the realm of possibilities that he thinks Greenland is Cuba.

Well, in fact, in WWII the US did take over Iceland to make sure it didn't fall into the wrong hands.

I was going to say that you don't worry about the guy who's shooting his mouth off about taking your country. You worry about the guy who's very quietly preparing his forces. But 1) I do in fact worry that Trump will go beyond shooting his mouth off, and 2) while Putin said "oh no, we're not going to attack Ukraine, these are just exercises", he was making very visible moves with his troops that were clearly threatening.

So, yeah. I don't trust Trump, but I also don't trust Putin. (Though I trust him this far - he's got his hands too full at the moment to try it.)

> Though I trust him this far - he's got his hands too full at the moment to try it.

I legitimately can't tell who you think has their hands too full to start something: the West's old superpower opponent currently waging a hot war with their neighbour, or the guy trying to actively dismantle the United States of America from the inside

And somehow, between the two of them, it's Trump that I don't trust to simply let a plate fall, move on to (or back to) Greenland, and create more outrage to get the public and the media forget about the smashed plate.

> I legitimately can't tell who you think has their hands too full to start something: the West's old superpower opponent currently waging a hot war with their neighbour, or the guy trying to actively dismantle the United States of America from the inside

To be fair, Putin has always been at war with one of his neighbours. When it wasn't Ukraine it was Georgia, Chechenia, Afganistan, whatever. He's always looking for a former USSR state to kill somewhere. This is why I was a bit surprised that the media considers the Ukraine thing a massive change of direction. It's not. The only thing that's different is that it's a country that the EU was interested in having join us now. It's terrible what he's doing in Ukraine but why didn't we consider it such an outrage when he did the same in Georgia and Chechenia?

> And somehow, between the two of them, it's Trump that I don't trust to simply let a plate fall, move on to (or back to) Greenland, and create more outrage to get the public and the media forget about the smashed plate.

Yeah with Trump I think he's just super unpredictable. No way to know what he's going to do tomorrow. At least with Putin it's pretty clear.

We’ve always been at war with Greenland….

It would be hilarious if this wasn’t so stupid.

https://archive.ph/k1q08

Day 215. They went fishing...again.

In response to the WSJ doing it's actual job, the administration offered this:

    "The Wall Street Journal should be ashamed of aiding deep state actors
     who seek to undermine the President by politicizing and leaking classified
     information. They are breaking the law and undermining our nation’s
     security and democracy."

The DNI's petulant rhetoric aside, the WSJ is honoring the press' 1A protections by informing the public of Gov misdeeds. It is why the press exists. By doing their job they make the public secure.

From the Edward Snowden leaks, we learned that National Security is about securing US Gov and it's partners. And we learned how undermining National Security often keeps Americans secure from bad Gov behavior.

And when the public is informed in good faith, Democracy is a little better off.

This is what we get when we fail to reign in mass surveillance a whole decade after the Snowden disclosures. Can we agree that we crossed a line a yet?

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