Leaked documents point to cooperative European surveillance program | Hacker News Reader

Leaked documents point to cooperative European surveillance program

csmonitor.com

23 pointsdrone7 comments

Here's the original Guardian report: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/01/gchq-europe-s...

Completely unsurprising, except for the sheer amount of hypocrisy of European governments who pretended to be shocked at the American reveals.

I called it recently:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6564469

and of course the reaction was denial & vitriol.

It bears repeating: the world's governments can be divided into exactly two groups -- those that are monitoring the internet, and those that are trying to. Vigilance must be applied to all of them, not just some.

I don't think anyone is surprised that governments monitor the internet in some way, and would target individuals or organizations under suspicion. They would also cooperate with each other, see for example Interpol. The issue is collecting and storing information on the private actions of individuals for whom there is no reason to suspect an involvement in anything criminal.

Where in any of these articles does it state that they were expressly not storing information on the private actions of individuals for whom there is no reason to suspect an involvement in anything criminal?

>expressly not storing information

I'm not sure what you mean? It is now widely recognized that intelligence services were storing information on people who were not under any suspicion.

And on top of that, most people want someone else to do something about it and don't want to change their habits which further exacerbates what is going on by not getting at the heart of the problem. I shared some of my thoughts on that here[0]. I also have been talking about these issues pre snowden leaks, and I find it comical that it has gotten attention it has now because before everyone who mentioned that to most self proclaimed intellectuals was promptly dismissed in many shapes and forms…

[0] http://blog.pictobar.com/post/63785124046/the-banality-of-pr...

That was the reaction of France's former intelligence chief as well: http://www.france24.com/en/20131024-nsa-france-spying-squarc...

Bernard Squarcini, head of the Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur (DCRI) intelligence service until last year, told French daily Le Figaro he was "astonished" when Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said he was "deeply shocked" by the claims. "I am amazed by such disconcerting naiveté," he said in the interview. "You'd almost think our politicians don't bother to read the reports they get from the intelligence services."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com