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Comment by dfc | Hacker News Reader

Do you think "in a sense" that the EU nations should abandon SIGINT and stick to good old fashioned HUMINT? Or maybe a middle of the road position and just have the Five Eyes abstain from SIGINT?

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Well I have yet to see something about direct spying and intrusion in US networks by EU government agencies.

Also yeah - the whole dragnets should be scaled back for various reasons. If you intercept and retain everything you have insane SNR that can prove counterproductive in the long run.

Very intensive spying on allies is impolite at best.

"France is top industrial espionage offender [against Germany]"

http://www.france24.com/en/20110104-france-industrial-espion...

And yet allies do it constantly. I'm skeptical that polite applies in this context when you consider history.

Here's the cable for that:

https://www.aftenposten.no/spesial/wikileaksdokumenter/artic...

The thing about intelligence work is that your failures are public and successes are secret.

I think your last sentence is hopelessly naive.

So make the successes public in full detail.

I cant tell if this is a legitimate response or if you are being obtuse.

I'm being serious. HN is nothing if not ultra-rational (or so we claim). Evidence trumps all. Prove surveillance works, that it's necessary, works better than any conceivable alternative, and that the damage to society is worth it, and your empirical proof will be accepted.

Are you drunk? I never said anything like this.

How about if you two just stop?

My apologies. I did not intend to come across as argumentative.

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