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Comment by weinzierl | Hacker News Reader

"A confidential classification shows that the NSA considered the Federal Republic does as a partner, but also as an attack target. Thus, Germany is one of the so-called third-class partners. Specifically excluded from espionage attacks are Canada, Australia, Britain and New Zealand, which are performed as a second category. "We can attack the signals of most foreign partner third class - and to do so," it said in a presentation."

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Here's a better translation of a passage that made me particularly irate: "On Christmas Eve 2012, the NSA eavesdropped and stored about 13 million telephone connections"

Merry Christmas, German friends.

I find it interesting that the set of five countries: UK, US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. I'd like to know how the US came up with this list. Is it because we speak the same language? Is it because we share the same heritage? Where does this leave France? What did France do to us that we need to spy on them?

To gain some perspective here, imagine this scenario where Germany was in the US' position and it makes a list of countries: Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Switzerland as nations to exclude from espionage attacks. Imagine that we are in a military alliance with them (NATO) and Germany has military bases spread across the US.

Would that not make you feel uneasy to suddenly learn one day that not only you are a possible military target but also that you are an active espionage target? How can you trust someone who does not trust you and feels the need to spy on everything you do and every word you say?

> I find it interesting that the set of five countries: UK, US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. I'd like to know how the US came up with this list. Is it because we speak the same language?

These are the "Five Eyes" countries and have been closely linked for national intelligence since World War II. The U.S. will monitor literally everyone else that it can, and has done so since WWII proved how useful national security intelligence is for toward national security.

For years you've been able to Google "In God We Trust; All Others We Monitor" and find various intelligence community posters, unit patches, etc.

The leak to SPON helps confirm that with numbers. But Germany's leaders have undoubtedly known it was going on, just as France's, Russia's, etc.

Probably because those are the five participating nations in the UKUSA agreement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement

Judging by the revealed alliance with GCHQ in UK, and the long term history of joined espionage programs here in Australia, there is a good chance that top tier list are already in strategic negotiations with the US and the NSA.

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