Snowdon is a dummy

@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

I was amazed at seeing Holder with a straight face making this announcement.

The fact that we spy to derail terrorist attacks does not justify China and France spying to steal corporate secrets.

1 Reply

@revelette2,

revelette2 wrote:

Why wouldn't he have a straight face?

Indeed.

revelette2 wrote:

Have we hacked stolen state secrets from other nations?

We steal state secrets from foreign governments. We do not steal corporate secrets from foreign industry.

China and France are stealing corporate secrets from foreign industry.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

The NSA has "hacked [foreign] companies and stolen trade secrets", yes.

No they haven't.

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@oralloy,

Quote:

The fact that we spy to derail terrorist attacks does not justify China and France spying to steal corporate secrets.

Of course that is why we do massive spying on the whole population of the planet on a scale never even dream of by anyone else in order to deal with a few terrorists in the middle east.

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This is not about Snowden, but it has implications about our Constitution.
http://news.yahoo.com/ap-sources-justice-dept-reveal-drone-memo-214537996--politics.html

Quote:

What are the key constitutional guarantees of fair trial?
In: US Constitution [Edit categories]
Answer:
Key constitutional guarentees of fair trial are the right of representation and with that comes the right to enough alotted time to acquire that representation. Bit this 6th amendment goes right along with the third amendment because often to make a trial fair you need an unbiased third party (the jury) to come to a reasonable conclusion.

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I think that Frank is correct about that some act up about the US-spying in Germany.
And that the NSA did and does it legally.

I've finished reading a book by a history chair about "monitored Germany".
He looked through archives and gave a lot of (formerly secret) documents as sources. (The book actually is pre-Snowden-times, published more than a year ago.)

We've got here in Germany since 1945 the so-called "Alliertes Vorbehaltsrecht" (allied right for caveats).
That was above German laws and our constitution (aka 'Basic Law', Grundgesetz.)
Adenauer tried (until the 1960's) to change at least the secret additional protocols - without result. The USA said it to be an "eternal fact". (In the document 17 from November 24, 1958, the USA required to get full control of all post and telephone communications - and just took this right.)
The UK resigned from this in the documents 18b and 18c under chancellor Brandt (27 May respectively 28 October 1968).

Generally, Germany got back its full sovereignty with the "Two Plus Four Treaty" (Treaty on the Final Settlement With Respect to Germany) in 1990 respectively after the ratifications fully effective from 15 March 1991 onwards.

However, those secret documents aren't mentioned there (and if that treaty was extended by secret endorsements isn't known).
Quite a few constitutional and international law experts think that the old documents regarding the surveillance by US-agencies and personal are still valid.

Conclusion: what NSA did and does here in Germany and from German soil (including hacking Merkel's mobile phone, reading all emails etc etc) was and is against our laws and constitution. But legal.

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

Walter Hinteler wrote:

However, those secret documents aren't mentioned there (and if that treaty was extended by secret endorsements isn't known).
Quite a few constitutional and international law experts think that the old documents regarding the surveillance by US-agencies and personal are still valid.

Conclusion: what NSA did and does here in Germany and from German soil (including hacking Merkel's mobile phone, reading all emails etc etc) was and is against our laws and constitution. But legal.

I've translated (from German) what is written in the above mentioned secret document:

Quote:

[...]"firstly, the surveillance exception, the right to continue to monitor the domestic and international postal and telecommunications traffic in the Federal Republic, and secondly the intelligence exception, the right to the Allied intelligence with the support of the German Federal Office for Protection of the Constitution to act outside the German law if intelligence interests requires so." [...]

The UK didn't follow it (documents/date named above) explicitly referring to article 10 of our constitution:

Quote:

Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany
Article 10 [Privacy of correspondence, posts and telecommunications]
(1) The privacy of correspondence, posts and telecommunications shall be inviolable.

(2) Restrictions may be ordered only pursuant to a law. If the restriction serves to protect the free democratic basic order or the existence or security of the Federation or of a Land, the law may provide that the person affected shall not be informed of the restriction and that recourse to the courts shall be replaced by a review of the case by agencies and auxiliary agencies appointed by the legislature.

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@Walter Hinteler,

It said the documents made clear the purpose was to find out if the company was spying on the US. Did the documents also make clear the second purpose was to get inside the Huawei's system and spy on the clients? Even if it does, why wouldn't the second purpose align with the first purpose?

I think the distinction the Obama is trying to make is that the US don't spy for specific companies economic advantage, like the ATT. However, according to that article the Clinton administration did spy before trade agreements were worked out. I imagine that all countries do the same if they can, but it I agree, it isn't right. I do think it is right to spy on other countries internet companies to find out if they are spying on us. It's only prudent to do so.

1 Reply

@revelette2,

revelette2 wrote:

I do think it is right to spy on other countries internet companies to find out if they are spying on us. It's only prudent to do so.

So you say that it is correct that the USA spies on the emails in other countries to find out, if someone using these services is spying on the USA.

Can you imagine how many emails are send per day? 50% of German internet users get between 10 and 24 emails per day; 25% get between 25 and 50 ...
Even with automated software you need quite a lot of resources to do so. And then the phone calls ... ...

On the other hand, my aol and gmail account are US-registered. Makes it easier.

And besides that: spying on phones and emails is legally done here in Germany by the USA in my opinion

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

I don't think they should open individuals accounts, but just find out if the country itself is using the company as a front to spy on the US government for state secrets.

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@revelette2,

I meant America firms.

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@revelette2,

When the GCHQ started on behalf of the NSA the cyber attack against Belgacom (a partly state-owned Belgian telecoms company, major customers include institutions like the European Commission, the European Council and the European Parliament), a top secret presentation indicated that the goal of this project, conducted under the codename "Operation Socialist," was "to enable better exploitation of Belgacom" and "to improve understanding of the provider's infrastructure".

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

OK, not sure I am understanding your point?

It makes sense if they want to find out if the company is a front for spying they want to check out the companies infrastructure.

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@revelette2,

By the same reasoning, Snowden's investigation into the NSA spying practices made a lot of sense, no?

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@revelette2,

revelette2 wrote:

It makes sense if they want to find out if the company is a front for spying they want to check out the companies infrastructure.

Well, yes, you never know what a state-owned phone company does, especially, when they handle all EU-communications.

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

You're right, you never know. More than likely the US had some reason to think that company was spying for economic reasons for the state. There is a difference even if some do not think the difference makes a difference.

1 Reply

@revelette2,

The US is using its cyber-hacking capacity to spy on companies and politicians, for financial and political profit. And yet they are pissed off when the chinese do the same on them. Rationalize that all you want.

2 Replies

@Olivier5,

The one I am aware of was in 2009 when the US spied on participants in the global warming convention. One could argue it was for both political and financial profit and I would agree to a point. The distinction seems to escape those who persist in thinking the US is baddest boogie man on the planet, however, there is a clear distinction in the company which we are discussing was spying for particular company firms to make a profit for particular companies. The spying the US and to some degree the UK did in 2009 was ahead of meetings concerning certain countries agreement on greenhouse emissions in their countries.

Snowden Docs: US Spied On Negotiators At 2009 Climate Summit

They were wrong to do it, and I think since the revelations some changes were made. I am sure they were not the first or the only country to ever do something like that. We are just the only one in this day and age to have a Snowden revealing everything, plus being that we have an advantage in technology, are able to spy more. It does not make it right.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

The US is using its cyber-hacking capacity to spy on companies and politicians, for financial and political profit. And yet they are pissed off when the chinese do the same on them. Rationalize that all you want.

We do not spy to steal corporate secrets. China and France do. There is not a bit of parity between the two.

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@revelette2,

Snowden has revealed more cases of executives from key European or other companies being spied on by the NSA. Wake up and smell the coffee already. Anti-terrorism has grown into a fig leaf for greed. It would not surprise me if the good guys within the NSA were involved in all sorts of dirty commercial and financial deals.

2 Replies

Snowdon is a dummy

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