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Comment by lgbr | Hacker News Reader

What would make you think that foreign governments would be any better? Supposedly privacy friendly European governments engage in plenty of wiretapping[1][2][3]. What I find different about what happens in the US is that these events are highly publicized, scrutinized, and court battles over wiretapping are extremely expensive for the US government, compared to other countries. I don't see that happening elsewhere.

1: http://ccc.de/en/updates/2011/analysiert-aktueller-staatstro...

2: http://falkvinge.net/2012/04/02/sweden-paradise-lost-part-1-...

3: http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2011/09/fran-s09.html

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My understanding is that, as a non US-citizen, I'd be generally considered 'fair game' for a lot of blanket surveillance that would not be applied to Americans. Maybe this is what scrrr is referring to? [Edit: I see this is what harkyns_castle alludes to as well.]

Because there's a significant difference in influence I can assert to MY governmnet and a FOREIGN (which includes US) government.

Consider just a lot of US surveillance laws: we non-US citizens might as well be animals for the rights we have. Significantly different than what our own local/EU privacy laws award us.

Also it is significantly easier to take legal action againsy my own government agencies than US ones.

Except people in CN, NZ and AU pretend they are not part of the 5 eyes and don't appeal their own govs, just complain about US. Brilliant.

Not sure about the others, but the Kiwis certainly have been appealing the government to stop spying, and questioning New Zealand's role in 5 eyes:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objecti...

CN? When did China join 5 eyes?

Oops. CA not CN, CA is the postcode for California and the TLD for Canada. Good to see some pressure applied to the NZ gov but I think Dotcom muddles things.

May be that foreign governments aren't any better (but I bet that no EU government spend as much money as the USA in wiretapping), but if you're not an US citizen (and so no warranties are valid for you) I think it's better to have your data in a jurisdiction where you can defend yourself in court, if the need arises.

The difference between "other countries" and the US is that the US puts up a show of "human rights", "scrutiny", and "court battles" in order to show that they "care", whereas the other ones just do not bother.

Where are the results? Better yet, public scrutiny? Everything's a fucking national secret.

Foreign governments are certainly no better. However the government in the USA is certainly more capable and perhaps more motivated than most to act on the information it receives.

There is also familiarity with the government carrying out the surveillance to be taken into account. For most European countries, particularly the one that have been members of the EU for some time there is quite good rule of law and so the consequences of being monitored are potentially less severe. Looking at governments with lots of resources to spare or ones without a good rule of law then surveillance is likely to make people more nervous - which is exactly the intent.

> What would make you think that foreign governments would be any better?

The vast majority of them don't have even 1% of the NSA's budget for spying.

Every citizen of every country is fair game for every government, especially their own.

You can't proselytize a rational worldview to irrational people.

The likely reality is that the U.S. has a lesser desire than most other governments to suppress liberty, privacy, and free expression, but their capability is so much greater in magnitude than the others that they end up being the worst offender in the world anyway.

So you can't just say that "every government is bad." Some have worse motives than others, and some are more competent than others. As a result, citizens of governments who are only in it for the bribes and mistresses and are otherwise somewhat bumbling incompetents (and I'm not naming names here), are likely safer than citizens of governments who believe they have a mission from God to be the sword and shield of the righteous, and hire thousands of the smartest people in the world to carry that mission out.

The point being that yes, all governments are a nonzero threat to all people, but severity equals risk multiplied by impact. You really have to address the shit that the U.S., Russia, and China are doing to the global network first.

> bumbling incompetents (and I'm not naming names here), are likely safer than citizens of governments who believe they have a mission from God to be the sword and shield of the righteous, and hire thousands of the smartest people in the world to carry that mission out

Yes bumbling Europeans are less dangerous but only because they have outsourced their intelligence to the US. China and Russia are more dangerous but only to their own population.

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