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Comment by xorgar831 | Hacker News Reader

A spy organization caught spying, shocking.

so the EU is the US's enemy? I mean, I always figured spying was a form of warfare.

The definition is: "An agent employed by a state to obtain secret information, especially of a military nature, concerning its potential or actual enemies."

As far as I'm concerned, people should be more concerned about this, unless they feel like they agree with their governments actions as valid, thus confirming they do in fact believe the EU is a potential enemy.

If that's the case, I feel the EU should take some drastic measures against the US.

France spies on Germany. Should Germany take "drastic" measures against France?

Does France also kidnap people and put them into secret prisons? Does it demand support for offensive wars, and do we live in a "post Eiffelturm tower" world? When, since Napoleon, was something like "either with us or against us" heard from there?

Also, yes, why not. Maybe the first step could be to stop spying on France, the second could be mocking the spies with baguettes? Because you have a point and fair is fair.

>Does it demand support for offensive wars It did so with Libya and now talking about arming terrorists in Syria. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_L...

Oh is France the magical country with no blood on its hands? France, I suppose has never been a part of supporting brutal African dictators or anything like that? You're not even serious. On some level your "post Eiffel tower" or whatever nonsense you're talking about might be sort of funny but it seems you are more addressing how relevant France has been on the world stage than anything else. If you really want to play this game, we can just, instead, talk about how proportionally relevant France has been in the rest of the world since the time of Napoleon.

Or blow up Greenpeace boats in foreign waters killing members of the Crew.

This is what makes me so mad at our weird policy of being scared of terrorists. Given the only proper bombing here in recent memory was by the French, why the hell are we scared of jihadists when it was our supposed allied that hit us?

I'm not catching the point your making, but am worried that you're saying France hasn't had secret prisons and state sponsored torture. If you are saying this, please read up on Algeria. Be prepared to feel sickened.

It would make round 3 more interesting. In all seriousness though, what are you referring to?

http://iphone.france24.com/en/20110104-france-industrial-esp...

There are friendly nations, but no friendly intelligence services.

EU nations spy on the US. That's not up for debate. It is a fact.

That's how the world works.

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/30/world/us-expanding-its-eff...

It is possible that this kind of activity from European countries is in fact a direct result of similar activity by the US government.

Ok?

Oh come on. He missed a quotation mark so you don't address the question. Pedantic sir, Pedantic! /intentional

If it was a question, it was rhetorical - and irrelevant.

Just like our last 4 comments. But here I am, giving you my morning coffee time.

I digress. I think ultimately you have to decide to accept current practises as inevitable, or malleable.

I for one, do not think allies should spy on each other. Being caught so would have punitive repercussions such as increases in trade rates. If perpetrator makes a big deal about it, then find better allies, and then they can spy all they want.

You're linking to an article on corporate spying. We're discussing spying on government officials on, what I can only assume, is a lot more serious matters, i.e waging wars.

This is a trust/image issue for the states, and it's really taking a beating right now.

Lets not make the same mistake that most people were making regarding the NSA before these leaks: it makes logical sense that EU governments would spy on everyone they technologically can; ergo we must assume that they are.

EU doesn't spy on anyone - we have no central intelligence. So let's not assume anything.

>EU governments

AKA individual member nation governments.

Assume away. But France is not Denmark and vice versa.

Apparently Israel is spying on the US as well. I get the impression that everyone is spying on everyone else all the time. What concerns me most about spies spying on spies and politicians is the cost to tax payers everywhere.

This thing doesn't bother me in the same way as when they're spying on me, because I care about my privacy and safety but as an EU citizen I don't care much if the US finds out something about EU negotiation tactics or whatever they're after.

That it's not between enemies is exactly why it doesn't matter much. It's just an expensive playground for a self-important security aparatus.

I don't care much if the US finds out something about EU negotiation tactics or whatever they're after.

You're then very uniformed: there are a lot of issues where U.S. and EU have very different goals and where it would be of EU citizen's (and even the world's) interest not to "just do what the U.S. wants."

The US knowing what the EU wants or plans to do doesn't mean to "just do what the US wants". And if I was uninformed before, I'm no less uninformed after your reply. That there are areas of disagreement between the US and the EU isn't exactly news to me.

There is clearly a significant leverage coming to the negotiations knowing much more than those on another side.

In order to be informed try to follow the topics of disagreements between EU and US, there are enough of those, and any European citizen is affected. Just a small example where EU first opposed and then did everything US wanted:

http://www.dw.de/report-us-can-snoop-on-europeans-flying-to-...

Interesting that you would choose this example. Yes, the US gets data on airline passangers and I'm not happy about that. On the other hand, many European countries are a lot further along the way to total surveillance. The UK is a prime example but also German authorities were recently caught illegally installing spyware on PCs. France even banned the personal use of encryption software (much of it is still banned). The EU data retention directive mandates telcos and internet providers to keep all metadata for 6 to 24 months.

So there is no significant difference in opinions between EU and US authorities where spying on its own citizens is concerned. Airline passanger data is a minor detail.

Obviously, no negotiator wants to be spied upon and my opinion is not that it is OK. I'm just saying it doesn't matter much at the end of the day.

If you don't want to be bothered I can't change it, but I can still with my clear consciousness claim you're uninformed as long as you apparently don't see that the interests of EU and US don't have to be the same and don't bother to follow the examples yourself. Genetically modified produces anyone?

I am informed about the genetically modified food controversy. And even though I'm sure there are transatlantic issues about which I am indeed uninformed, you may have to accept that our differences have little to do with lack of information. We seem to be ascribing different importance to some of the same facts.

I don't think we should be taking cues on foreign policy from Israel...

We can, and should, strive to be better than that.

I mean, I always figured spying was a form of warfare.

Here is the problem - you are starting from a bad assumption.

So if the Air Force starts bombing Germany, you'll say "A military caught killing people, shocking"? How is this intended to sound like a contribution to discussion?

If we were at war with Germany and yet people were shocked that it took place, that would be an appropriate response to remind everyone of reality. I don't know what you think the EU has done that prevents it from being an acceptable target for American espionage.

Yes, let's apply it to something else:

"A rapist caught raping women, shocking".

Because an organisation doing what it was created for, totally justifies that thing, right?

Not the same thing. A "rapist" generally isn't someone whose job is to rape people all day. If he were, the newsworthy aspect would be that such a position exists, not that the person in that position has raped someone. But we all understand that espionage exists as a normal part of relations beteween nation-states, and the NSA and CIA exist solely to do it.

Spy agencies were supposed to spy on the "bad guys", not on every single citizen of all the other countries - and then send back the data to those local governments.

Intelligence agencies are in the business of intelligence; enemy or friend is not a relevant distinction. Why is it a surprise that intelligence agencies would spy on "friends"? Why are people so damn naive?

It's not that they are naive, it's that they aren't cynical and withdrawn.

No, it is in fact very naive to think the idea of a "friend" even has any meaning on the scale of nation-states. There are nations who's interests are aligned and those who's interests are not. Anything more than that is pure naivete.

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