Snowdon is a dummy

"If we would tap into the cell phone of the German leader, one of our closest allies, many people are asking, is there anything we wouldn't do. Are we willing do anything to support our interest?"

"One of the most significant accomplishments of the United States after World War II was to build with its European partners a set of relationships were there was presumed trust and a believe that the US was acting in their interest."

Hummm...people from the intelligence community telling lies.

Who ever woulda thunk it!

C'mon, ci.

"I find it absurd to equate the NSA and the Stasi – it's a smokescreen. It doesn't help us in clearing up the current intelligence scandals, and it trivialises the work of the Stasi. They didn't just gather information but also lock up those who criticised the state. But the NSA debate has shown how important it is to raise your voice when basic human rights are being violated."

Good luck as American companies themselves are unlikely to trust buying from American security/network firms either.

Nor are we likely to win a worldwide economic war with the rest of the world.

Two quotes from the DW-report NSA surveillance eroded transatlantic trust

Quote:

"If we would tap into the cell phone of the German leader, one of our closest allies, many people are asking, is there anything we wouldn't do. Are we willing do anything to support our interest?"

"One of the most significant accomplishments of the United States after World War II was to build with its European partners a set of relationships were there was presumed trust and a believe that the US was acting in their interest."

In an interview in the Berlin daily newspaper Tagesspiegel the current commissioner of the Federal Commission for the Stasi Archives, Roland Jahn ("Bundesbeauftragter für die Stasi-Unterlagen") said:

Quote:

"I find it absurd to equate the NSA and the Stasi – it's a smokescreen. It doesn't help us in clearing up the current intelligence scandals, and it trivialises the work of the Stasi. They didn't just gather information but also lock up those who criticised the state. But the NSA debate has shown how important it is to raise your voice when basic human rights are being violated."

The US is indeed acting in German interests.

The NSA has not violated any human rights.

The NSA has not violated any human rights.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in New York on Friday ruled that the National Security Agency’s program that is systematically keeping phone records of all Americans is lawful, creating a conflict among lower courts and increasing the likelihood that the issue will be resolved by the Supreme Court.
[...]
Judge Pauley said that protections under the Fourth Amendment do not apply to records held by third parties, like phone companies.

“This blunt tool only works because it collects everything,” Judge Pauley said in the ruling.

“While robust discussions are underway across the nation, in Congress and at the White House, the question for this court is whether the government’s bulk telephony metadata program is lawful. This court finds it is,” he added.

The ruling comes nearly two weeks after Judge Richard J. Leon of Federal District Court for the District of Columbia said the program most likely violated the Fourth Amendment. As part of the ruling, Judge Leon ordered the government to stop collecting data on two plaintiffs who brought the case against the government.

In his ruling, Judge Leon said that the program “infringes on ‘that degree of privacy’ that the founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment,” which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.

While Judge Leon ordered the government to stop collecting data on the two plaintiffs, he stayed the ruling, giving the government time to appeal the decision.

The Fourth Amendment (Amendment IV) to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights that prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures and requires any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause. It was adopted in response to the abuse of the writ of assistance, a type of general search warrant issued by the British government and a major source of tension in pre-Revolutionary America. The Fourth Amendment was introduced in Congress in 1789 by James Madison, along with the other amendments in the Bill of Rights, in response to Anti-Federalist objections to the new Constitution. Congress submitted the amendment to the states on September 28, 1789. By December 15, 1791, the necessary three-quarters of the states had ratified it. On March 1, 1792, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson announced the adoption of the amendment.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.[1]

A former head of Britain’s Security Service MI5 believes that whistleblower Edward Snowden will be offered a deal by the United States in exchange for agreeing to halt any further leaks of government material.

Dame Eliza Manningham Buller, told BBC Radio Four’s Today Programme that she did not support publication of the US National Security Agency material because only those working in intelligence would have had the available evidence to understand its consequences.

When asked if she thought Mr Snowden would be prosecuted if he was caught by the US, she said: “I think what will happen actually is there’ll come a deal that he doesn’t release any more, but I really don’t know.”

Dame Manningham Buller, who was guest-editing the programme, said of the former CIA Agent and The Guardian’s decision to publish his leaked material: “I do understand that there are people who think he’s done a public service and who applaud him but I can’t really be one of them because what neither The Guardian, or really anybody, including me, can judge, is what damage he has done to counter-terrorism, which is my subject.

“We can’t, I can’t, they can’t see what the loss of information it is; what plots were being investigated that have now gone dark; what will not now be detected and not now be thwarted. So my concern is the damage which I don’t think anybody outside the intelligence community can really detect or judge.”

The ex-security chief, who ran the service from 2002 to 2007, was also asked about the Chilcot Enquiry into the Iraq war. Her evidence to it in 2010 caused controversy when she said that the evidence to go to war had not “substantial enough” and that it had radicalised a generation against the British Government.

She told the BBC it was “very important” that its findings were published: “A lot of people have contributed to that report, a lot of people have given evidence, it’s been working for a long time now.”
... ... ...

It is highly unlikely that US firms have any objections to the idea of US spy agencies hunting down al-Qa'ida.

accept the risk that whatever company they buy from might be helping its nation's intelligence agencies.

At least if they buy from the US they will know those intelligence agencies won't be trying to steal all their industrial secrets

It might be the sort of war where there are no winners. But no, our capacity to damage the rest of the world is such that we could very easily come out on top.

Next having communication and storage information protected with an encrypted that had been produce by a very weak pseudo random number generator open that information to hacking attacks by far more then the NSA.

You can not have back doors that will only work for sure for the NSA and not others.

Of course there are always risks however the only government that is known to had place weaknesses in security software is the US government and they have the most abilities to do so of anyone else in the world.

However American firms are likely holders of foreign firms trade secrets such as air bus as sub contractors and would not be happy with those firms holding their information in a manner that NSA could look at in secret.

The winners would be the middle east terrorists and others that wish the western world evil and no one else.