Is the NSA outsourcing its domestic spying to Israel?
geektime.com
geektime.com
"One theory that’s been gaining traction as of late, on how the NSA got around those pesky little things called laws, is that they outsourced the project to Israel."
So basically a random conspiracy theory clickbait. Also the reference to 8200 here really shows the author has no fogey idea.
In short, Israeli intelligence out of necessity doesn't focus on PRISM like data-mining approaches.
The fact an Israeli company has people who served there is meaningless, it reflects nothing on what the company does nor the quality of its people.
It is not far-fetched to think that broad intelligence gathering will be used in the exact same way today. Communism may not be the big boogieman it once way, but there are still ideologies and causes that can get you branded as undesirable. For example, by being drug liberal.
I think it's naive to think that the information they are collecting will go unused. There aren't enough terrorist threats in there to act upon, so they will focus on the secondary threats which is people with the wrong opinions.
The evidence for this alleged act of Israel spying on the US is that an Israeli company developed software that was purchased and used by the government and phone companies. That's all. We don't even know what the software is named or what it does other than a vague description of it logging and copying network data; it could be a frontend to wireshark or netcat. Consider, how does Hacker News react when any other startup develops useful cutting-edge network management software and gets a big government deal? Now see how we react when an Israeli company does the exact same thing? This is a hate-the-Jews thread.
As for "nominally democratic" I'll ignore it in order to not bring the already devastated level of discourse here yet lower.
But, back the point, do you seriously believe the NSA will outsource its most sensitive operations to another country? HN is now moving from r/politics to r/conspiracy.
Perhaps "military assistance" would have been a better term.
As to "nominally democratic", they're governed by a bunch of repressive thugs who don't listen to their own people - slightly better than the United States in that respect. Or do you really think their Palestinian policy is democratically derived?
And yes. I think the military-industrial complex will do anything to win, and the Israelis are known to be non-stupid. They could do worse.
As to the level of discourse, I thought my response was better than JEW JEW JEW ANTISEMITISM, but your mileage may vary.
>it's utterly vital for Israeli survival to have the threat of American nuclear reprisal at their beck and call
(1) Why exactly do you think Israel has US support at their beck and call? I can tell you Israelis definitely don't think so. (2) Why does Israel need it, when - following the collapse of the USSR which was the main lifeline of other Mideast forces - it now has the most powerful military in the region? and (3) Israel has its own nukes since the '60s.
American support for Israel started only in the early '70s, after Israel proved itself a useful asset by winning the Six Day War, without any US support and as counterbalance for the USSR support of Arab nations. Israel is one of very few nations in the world (certainly the western world) which the US didn't have to send its military to protect at some point.
(1) From the point of view of a liberal American, it seems a given. To have any negative opinion of Israeli politics in the States marks you as Not The In Crowd.
(2) I dunno - all I know is that American politicians represent the situation in this way. I know a few Israelis, but we've never talked politics and I've never been to Israel, sadly. So I'm woefully ignorant.
(3) We're never supposed to talk about that, are we? Only Evil Rogue Nations violate nuclear treaties they didn't sign, after all.
On your final paragraph - now I'm going to have to go read some things.
(2) I agree, the situation is represented in the US in very simplistic terms, by both sides.
(3) IMHO Israel, along with Pakistan and India, took the only respectable option by not signing that treaty. When my wife was doing her MA she'd often tell me how her professors mentioned various UN human rights treaties the US didn't sign and which many dictatorships did sign. It amazed me how her ivy league teachers didn't realize the signature of most nations is meaningless, as they have no intention of committing to it.