US admits: French surveillance revelations raise 'legitimate questions' | Hacker News Reader

US admits: French surveillance revelations raise 'legitimate questions'

theguardian.com

17 pointsstfu5 comments

How exactly does the US have access to French phone records, to the extent they can record conversations, and full content of SMS messages?

I would presume all those systems would reside in France, or the EU at the very least? So who is providing them this information, or given them unfettered access to them? And why has nobody noticed until now?

Ok, so how exactly could the US do this without French government access to circuits? Of course this was probably done with the French government's permission. And no one is asking to what extent the French government itself is engaged in this kind of activity.

EDIT: Aaaaaaaand this article is already well on its way to the third page.

>The two presidents agreed that we should continue to discuss these issues in diplomatic channels.

Because those channels are safe (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/21/mexico-condemns...).

>According to the paper, the documents show that the NSA was allegedly targeting not only terrorist suspects but also politicians, businesspeople and members of the administration under a programme codenamed US-985D. The paper said "French interests" were "targeted on a daily basis".

>Le Monde said the unpublished Snowden documents it had seen showed "intrusion, on a vast scale, both into the private space of French citizens as well as into the secrets of major national firms".

I'd like to see one of the members of the EU institute an embargo with the USA for a few weeks, just for kicks.

one of the members of the EU institute an embargo with the USA for a few weeks

I don't think that would affect the US materially; can the same be said for the would-be embargoer?

On the European side, I'd like to see some of our allies show some backbone and at least pretend that they're genuinely outraged. Sever some treaties, kill off some contracts with US businesses, something, anything to demonstrate that they take their own sovereignty and culture seriously. Of course, they're all in on the game too. For all their indignation it's really just showmanship.

On the other hand, if Mexico were serious about an embargo, that would have significant impacts. More so on Mexico, but it would still affect the USA materially.

I suppose over the past couple months, this whole debacle has cemented my opinion that everyone that matters --in terms of their supposed indignation and objection to all that has been revealed-- is already the USA's bitch. The only groups with balls enough to snub the USA are the ones that already have little to lose.

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