Report: NSA spied on Brazilian, Mexican presidents

Yes. That is their job. Because nations don't trust each other. Because, historically, they shouldn't. It would be naive to do otherwise.

Being angry is a normal reaction, but that doesn't mean spying on "friends" isn't the thing to do.

It's not black and white. You don't just have "friends" on one side and "enemies" on the others.

It can also be understood as "Trust but verify" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As6y5eI01XE

Who said Mexico and Brazil are friends of the US? Mexico and Brazil both represent significant economic threats to the U.S. And Brazil's fast growing economy and military power, with a population 2/3s that of the U.S. and unbelievably vast untapped natural resources will likely continue to skew the center of power in the Americas south. Brazil is now a larger economic power than the UK and a hair behind France if that puts things into perspective. Brazil has the largest and most powerful military force in Latin America that includes limited deep water force projection capabilities.

Mexico is a larger economy than South Korea. It's a "partner" in the war on drugs and is the major conduit for illicit drugs entering the US. It's military is supplied by countries that aren't necessarily "friends" of the US, it has a reputation for rampant corruption and out of control criminal enterprises. And oh yeah it shares one of the longer land borders with the U.S. and unbelievable number of Mexican citizens skirt border checkpoints in one of the largest human migrations in history that will inevitably result in massive cultural, economic and political changes in the U.S.

I'm not upset about these things, it's just the nature of changing times. But thinking that the U.S. and Brazil and Mexico and special BFFs and wouldn't ever, under any circumstances even do super secret double probation spying of any sort on each other has no other word than naive to describe it.

> And, am I not a grown up for seriously being angry about all this then?

Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm saying. Welcome to the very scary, duplicitous, wretched grown up world where friendship is only out of beneficial convenience and allies work to subvert each other while still trying to achieve mutual goals.

When you start getting sad about this, instead of angry, then you've grown up.

> "And I'm sure Mexico and Brazil did their best to spy on the US"

That might be true. But the US is an outlier. The US spends more on the military than the rest of the world combined, and that ratio probably extends to the intelligence budget.

So while the Mexicans might "do their best" to spy on America, that might be pretty far down their overall budget priorities.

No argument from me there.

Spying is not something "nice" people do in the general sense.

We get it.

Edward Snowden is attempting to hurt American interests, rather than expose some horrible crime against the US people. While the self-promoting hacks he picked as journalists continue to do what they do best, fabricate stories that don't really exists once you put the facts on the table and use the proper context.

That's the only way I can understand what he is doing right now, unless he really thinks the truth must come out purely for the sake of the truth, and secrets cannot exist. In which case he is extremely immature and doesn't understand the way the world operates.

In the mean time, he will continue to cause problems for the US. While the rest of the world uses these leaks for their own benefits. It will keep him relevant.

Are you saying that the fact the NSA spies on every country on the planet hitting CBS news changes anything?

The NSA isn't exactly the March of Dimes. It's a spy agency tasked with spying. Everybody knows the NSA spies on everybody, anybody who doesn't or expects otherwise is hopelessly naive.

Is it nice? No, not really. And in a better world the NSA wouldn't exist. But it's not a better world and thus the NSA exists. This stuff will continue to make the news for a while, people will feign shock at their own ignorance then it will fade away.

I see lots of comments here about how the NSA's recruitment image is now tarnished, is it? Does anybody ever try and get work at the NSA with the expectation that they won't be part of a giant spy apparatus? What exactly do people think crypto experts do?

Sure Brazilians might have some short term reaction, but long term it won't amount to a hill of beans.

> Most countries wouldn't even dream of spying on other countries

Contradictory to all known history. They all dream of it. Some of those are even full out wet dreams.

> Somebody really believes that, say, Belize spies on Germany? Or Nigeria spies on the UK?

Infantile, small, and poor countries don't have the knowhow and resources to effectively spy on other more-advanced nations.

That's the only reason they "don't",... because they "can't".

It's not a moral stand.

> A lot of small countries not only do not spy, but they voluntary let other large countries spy on them and handle over their citizens data.

Don't worry, they either get paid, or get some benefit from that arrangement.

> One could imagine people saying the same thing to blacks fighting for civil rights: "Well, of course you don't count as much as whites in this country, duh, welcome to the grown up world".

Nice analogy, that's broken in every way.

I'm also not going to fall for the trap of paralleling this to a race issue.

Nations fight for self-interests first and foremost, not for the interests of other nations, big or small.

> No, they do not.

Yes they do.

Do you think that everybody in say, a diplomatic mission from Nigeria on tour of a UK tank factory isn't looking for a leg up? Spying comes in all forms -- it's not just 007 movie stuff.

A harmless looking tour will get turned into detailed reports that will be cross referenced with other reports to build a picture of British industrial capacity or products. So the next time Nigeria has a water dispute with Chad they can assess the quality of the armored Land Rovers Chad just purchased.

For goodness sakes, Nigeria has to manage territory larger than Pakistan and you think they don't have an intelligence apparatus?

Here's their homepage! https://www.nationalintelligenceagency.gov.ng/ (it's down for now, but 1 guess as to what their mission is)

You want to talk small? I've personally met members of Trinidad and Tobago's National Intelligence Ministry and had a lovely talk about their work in Europe. National interests come in all shapes and sizes. It's not just about who you might go to war against, but about who might be sending huge groups of unruly tourists to your resorts so you have to invest in extra police forces.

>A lot of small countries not only do not spy, but they voluntary let other large countries spy on them and handle over their citizens data.

Sheesh. Talk about infantilizing! That's not even respectful of other country's ability to look out for themselves.

A list

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_intelligence_agencies

That's just it though, countries spy on each other. If that upsets you, then you're going to be disappointed forever. It's a bit like being upset that rain makes you wet, no kidding its rain. Countries spy on each other, friendly countries spy on each other because people lie all the time and do the opposite of what they say all the time. The lie to get their allies to do something for them (Iraq WMDs anyone?), they lie because they are covering something up, they lie to protect their own interests, and sometimes they just lie for pride.

It doesn't surprise or upset me one bit, because I know it's happening, I know it needs to happen, because why should I blindly trust any governments leaderships? And because lying and statesmanship seem to go hand in it will always happen. No country should ever trust another country blindly. As no citizen should trust its government blindly. Any government that does that is abdicating its responsibility to serve its citizens interests first, and any person that blindly trusts a government is going to be disappointed.

Think of spying like whistle blowing. We all want to know the truth.

You're misinterpreting what I said. I'm an American, and I live in London. It worries the crap out of me that the U.S. government can listen to all my calls, read my emails, for all I know track my anti-NSA HN posts as part "international" data collection. It worries me that they can do the same thing to my non-American friends, with even less oversight, and can have people extradited by compliant governments to face U.S. charges without traditional due process.

But that's not the argument I'm making. Spying on a foreign government is _not the same thing_ as a spying on civilians. I expect foreign governments to be spying on the US, and I expect the US to spy on foreign governments, even if I find it distasteful that they're spying on friendly nations. But that's not the same level of seriousness as unchecked spying on civilians. In a society where rule of law matters, unchecked government power spy on innocent civilians is an existential threat to democracy. That's a different thing than spying on heads of state.

Are all people, everywhere, so under the thumb of their intelligence agencies that they have no hope of privacy? Or are you willing to admit that some people, somewhere, have actual freedom and self-determination?