NB: please do not interpret any of the following as a personal endorsement of the status quo.
See, here's the thing. You have to recognize political realities here, and the realities are such that the political will does not exist right now to re-examine how intelligence services perform their function in foreign countries. That is, after all, why they exist. General Michael Hayden, former director of the NSA and CIA, said recently: "You’ve got a bunch of countries in Europe hyperventilating about America’s foreign intelligence operations. But the truth is that all nations conduct espionage. Nobody has claimed that America’s Bill of Rights, which protects the individual privacy of our citizens, was a global treaty. No one can claim that these nations aren’t doing similar things against America and many others. If some countries do have a legitimate compliant about our espionage activities, it’s frankly because we are just better at it than they are." (ref: http://www.afr.com/p/national/transcript_interview_with_former_KnS7JDIrw73GWlljxA7vdK) This is the political reality in the US right now: the scandal is not that the NSA is fulfilling its chartered mission of collecting SIGINT on national security threats. At the risk of oversimplifying, the scandal is that the *Foreign* Intelligence Surveillance Act is being used for *domestic* surveillance. Europeans and other "foreign persons" who are concerned that the United States government spies on them will likely need to look for remedies other than US law. On Tue, Jul 23, 2013 at 6:14 PM, Caspar Bowden (lists) <[email protected]> wrote: > So the spying on the rest-of-the-world's data sent to the US, including > "information with respect to a foreign-based political organization or > foreign territory that relates to the conduct of the foreign affairs of the > United States", that's totally fine is it? When the US domestic spying > problem is fixed everyone can go home... > > (slide 5) > https://sigint.ccc.de/schedule/system/attachments/2068/original/How_to_wiretap_the_Cloud_without_anybody_noticing_-_SIGINT_7.7.2013.pdf > > CB > > > On 07/23/13 23:56, Jonathan Wilkes wrote: > > To any U.S. citizens out there, this might be a good time to act: > > https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/07/tomorrow-congress-votes-amendment-defund-spying-heres-how-you-can-help > > -Jonathan > -- > Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by > emailing moderator at [email protected] or changing your settings at > https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech > > > > -- > Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by > emailing moderator at [email protected] or changing your settings at > https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech -- Too many emails? Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at [email protected] or changing your settings at https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech
