Hacker News Reader

Comment by crbnw00ts | Hacker News Reader

So, the rest of the world is "shocked, shocked I tell you" that the US is monitoring the internet? Does anyone really believe there aren't similar entities in other countries doing the same?

I bet all the world's governments can be divided into just two groups: those that are monitoring the internet, and those that are trying to.

View on HN

There aren't many other world governments that yield the same kind of international power on the Internet. You might have a point about governments in general, but I think the situation actually gets better if no single government can wiretap on such a large scale.

That being said, the tone of your comment makes me think you are not interested in an argument, but rather just want to deflect attention away from what the USG is doing. Because everybody is doing it, right?

Agreed, that "argument" is getting tiresome.

> Does anyone really believe there aren't similar entities in other countries doing the same?

Here's my interpretation of GP: since every governmental org wants to snoop, it is not enough to "break away" from the US* because it doesn't solve the underlying problem: insecure internet. Let's find solutions that presuppose the government is trying to snoop.

*Unless you don't mind being snooped on by your own government.

> That being said, the tone of your comment makes me think you are not interested in an argument, but rather just want to deflect attention away from what the USG is doing. Because everybody is doing it, right?

Quite the opposite. In no way am I trying to excuse what the US is doing or say that it is "right" in any way, shape, or form. I think what the US government is doing in terms of internet surveillance is unequivocally wrong.

The issue is: viewing it as a US-only problem will lead to everyone being vulnerable to similar surveillance from other parts of the world. Countries which are currently grandstanding about the US's actions are almost certainly motivated in part by wanting to deflect attention from the fact that they are either already using similar systems, or scrambling to build them.

Freedom from internet surveillance should be viewed as a human right that applies no matter where one lives. Framing it as "the US vs. everyone else" leaves everyone wide open. Before the Snowden leaks came out, there was widespread skepticism about the reach of the US's internet surveillance. Now that that skepticism has been (hopefully permanently) dissolved, I find it strange that there is any skepticism left in regards to other governments.

If people want to leave "America's Internet," the logical next question is: where would they go? So whether other national governments are doing the same thing is directly relevant. If they are, then nothing will be gained by leaving one surveillor for another.

The big difference between the US and other countries is the way it projects itself. There is a history of subjecting foreigners to the vagaries of American justice (extraordinary rendition, Kim Dotcom). America presumes to extend its sovereignty across the entire globe in the interest of self defense. This makes people worried. If China was extraditing Americans to Beijing and making them stand trial with evidence based on intercepts the US Government would go ballistic.

Does anyone really believe there aren't similar entities in other countries doing the same?

This argument is often used, and it's a bad one because it ignores that there are different levels of surveillance. No one is saying that other countries don't respond to illegal stuff going on on the Internet. But not every country in the world has opted for the all-out, monitor-every-law-abiding-citizen thing that NSA is doing.

Save for the UK, I can't think of a single Western European country that goes to the extreme lengths of surveillance that the US does.

> Save for the UK, I can't think of a single Western European country that goes to the extreme lengths of surveillance that the US does.

People were equally skeptical about the extent of the US's surveillance until the Snowden revelations. It always seems far-fetched ... right up until the moment it doesn't.

The big difference is that in the years before the Snowden revelations there were a lot of signs of things going on (e.g. when Washington Post revealed that 800,000 people worked in US intelligence and had a high security clearance [1] ). Signs as big as that have not been present for the EU, even when you count in Echelon.

1) http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articl...

> "Does anyone really believe there aren't similar entities in other countries doing the same?"

Do you believe anyone except maybe the Chinese government has a system like FOXACID for deploying exploits? Do you believe that there are more than a handful of governments spending what it takes to develop their own zero-day exploits? Do you believe any other government than the US has built out the backhaul needed for global dragnet surveillance?

The US spends more than the rest of the world combined on weapons and intelligence.

Some guy in the Latvian secret police might wish they had an NSA, but all they've got is a potato.

As you say, it's likely that most governments monitor domestic internet communication to some degree. It's very unlikely that any government but that of the US is trying to monitor international internet communication in its totality.

So the two groups you are looking for are: those that monitor the internet domestically, and those that monitor the internet internationally. The US (with assistance from a few allies) is the only country to fall into the second group.

I would assume any country with a big enough economy/budget is monitoring international internet communication in its totality. Or at least attempting it. Of course there's really only a hand full of nations that could likely pull it off.. This list is obviously purely speculation but in the game are probably: China, Russia, Germany, UK, maybe India.

If my government is spying on me, at least i can try to change this, by voting, by pushing popular laws to my country congress.. If its overseas.. how can i change that?

Are the democracy of US listening what its own people has to say? as somebody looking from the outside, it looks the answer is that is not.. perhaps the government are too busy listening to the elite class, that have their own agenda, and as long they are taking some profit out of it, its fine.. (but as a plus, and to our shame, in what country that is NOT the reality)

If its my government at least i can try to make them be reasonable in some way.. as im a citizen;

But how can we do that if we are not the citizen of the country who is abusing and breaking what we think is our civil rights? Can we citizens of all others countries spied by NSA knock on the doors of the white house?

So the "Your country are doing the same" line of thinking so popular here doesnt stick.. Sorry Pal

The point is that the American government have no right to monitor my communications with a website outside the US, given I live in the UK (we'll ignore that I work for an American company for a bit).

If the UK government decides they need to monitor my communications, fair enough. I am, afterall, subject to UK law.

The UK gov shares data with the US.

It can only share a certain amount under EU Law. There would have to be some sort of criminal threat.

Is there any check/balance on the definition of "criminal threat"? Because that's a pretty loose definition a priori.

"We believe a terrorist exists in GB. That constitutes a criminal threat. To catch him or her, we need to run big data analysis on all communications."

That doesn't follow - that wouldn't allow the export of European data to the US.

> I bet all the world's governments can be divided into just two groups: those that are monitoring the internet, and those that are trying to.

Which is even more reason for people to use strong encryption. And for states to, if they think their traffic might be read by someone with conflicting interests to theirs.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com