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Comment by dragonwriter | Hacker News Reader

> Are you saying the NSA is spying even on traffic that never goes near the USA? That would be one of the biggest claims so far.

Foreign signals intelligence is the whole point of the NSA [1]. The only reason their spying on domestic traffic is controversial is that, unlike purely foreign traffic, there is a history of abuse of surveillance for domestic political purpose which has produced both laws imposing limits on and public expectations of restraint with regard to domestic surveillance.

So, no, the NSA spying on purely foreign traffic with no domestic nexus wouldn't be "one of the biggest claims so far", it would be exactly what the NSA exists to do and a non-issue.

It would be news if the NSA wasn't spying on purely foreign traffic, not if it was.

[1] From http://www.nsa.gov/ : "The NSA/CSS core missions are to protect U.S. national security systems and to produce foreign signals intelligence information."

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I think that would be news to the rest of the world since it's likely illegal in most of it.

That's naive. You don't think the Russians and the Chinese have operatives in Washington trying to spy on Americans? Spying is illegal, but everyone does it.

What we're talking about is an international game of brinksmanship.

Illegality is a relative proposition. There are scarce few international laws that govern anything and even fewer international laws with teeth. Each individual nation has laws against spying, but given the propensity to avoid an international incident, I tend to think that spies who are discovered are either tortured or returned to their home countries. Since the laws of one country do not extend beyond their borders, it's difficult to enforce ones sovereignty in a different country, or to exert ones own authority over another nation-state's actor.

This is all just very murky, but the concept of illegality is relative at best in this instance.

> I think that would be news to the rest of the world since it's likely illegal in most of it.

The specific details of the NSA's (or any foreign intelligence service of any nation) intelligence gathering would be news, but the fact the NSA (or any foreign intelligence service of any nation) actually gathers intelligence outside of its home nation, quite often in violation of the laws of the places from which the intelligence is gathered, really isn't news.

I mean, that's the whole point of foreign intelligence services.

It's terrifying that people are even forming strong opinions about such things without understanding such basic information.

I was furious when I was under the impression they were slurping up any data that came near the US. Now I'm even more appalled.

Precisely my point. Extreme emotional reactions are not a good basis for an informed opinion. Learning about a subject is much more important than telling people on the Internet how mad you are about it. The downside (and I admit, it is a downside) is that it's much harder to maintain that sense of absolute certainty and self-righteousness that constant outrage affords. The world becomes much more complicated and forming an opinion that you can be confident in actually takes effort.

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