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Comment by OutOfHere | Hacker News Reader

It would be glorious to see Five Eyes fall apart, but that is much bigger ask. Canada would be wise to kick it off before the US annexes it.

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Because what we all need is to see the Ministry of State Security be the most capable intelligence agency in the world . . . wait, no we don't.

Russia and China still exist and are pre-eminent dangers. The US has gone crazy but we still need to work together to discourage wars related to invading taiwan or Europe. I am terrified the US won't come back to being an actual democracy that follows the rule of law. At the same time, we can just stop surveilling our citizens in the democratic free world. We can just decide to do that.

The main danger is not Russia and China - it is us. Why? Because we actively stop big tech from developing and deploying cybersecurity solutions to protect billions of people. Why? Because we want us and Israel to be able to hack their systems, just not Russia and China. We want it both ways, to develop the most defensible and the most vulnerable system, and this is why we can never win. This self-incompatible ask will be our collective undoing.

Also, if you think the US was a proper democracy, I have news for you - it wasn't. It has been an alternating two-party system that prevents the system from evolving beyond its current state. In a real democracy, information from the voter would be maximized, the first result of which would be to transform it beyond a rigid two-party system. The voting system would not be first-past-the-post. Superior forms of voting such as Ranked Choice and Range Voting would not be banned as they are in numerous red states; they would be welcomed. People would not be denied the right to vote. Gerrymandering wouldn't be a thing.

Wake up and see the truth for the darkness it is.

five eyes falling apart now seems like a "be careful what you wish for" situation where we'd start losing long-held alliances?

I think you might be putting the cart before the (stampeding) horse here.

the vast majority of people rooting for this outcome want to see a more powerful china or russia

That's not true. We just don't want the Five Eyes to be used as excuse for domestic surveillance without a non-FISA court order, which strongly happens to be the case.

Five Eyes is the mechanism for intelligence sharing between countries. Domestic surveillance, if it occurs, is not inherently part of that framework.

And ironically, one of the reasons why Five Eyes was so valuable is that it allows spy agencies that are banned from domestic surveillance from surveilling their own allies and then sharing the results, or at the very least sharing intel they've received elsewhere.

Snitching on each other's citizens, thereby illegally engaging in domestic surveillance of one's own citizens, absolutely is an integral part of it.

The Germans would have loved intelligence on the Hamburg cell planning 9/11. It wouldn't have just been a benefit to them.

Those alliances are language and culture-based. Bit stronger than one orange dipshit can disrupt.

Sharing of information can be restricted though for various reasons, as has been suggested happened regarding Pearl Harbor.

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