Comment by nabla9 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nabla9 | Hacker News Reader

Only Five eye countries are close allies to US. France and Germany act more independently and sometimes against US interests. They are watched with suspicion.

US and France have been spying each other for ages.

U.S. Intelligence and the French Nuclear Weapons Program – Documents Show U.S. Intelligence Targeted French Nuclear Program as Early as 1946 http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB184/

Former head of France’s counter-espionage understands what is the name of the game:

http://www.france24.com/en/20131024-nsa-france-spying-squarc...

>“The French intelligence services know full well that all countries, whether or not they are allies in the fight against terrorism, spy on each other all the time,” he said. “The Americans spy on French commercial and industrial interests, and we do the same to them because it’s in the national interest to protect our companies.” “There was nothing of any real surprise in this report,” he added. “No one is fooled.” "Chancellor Merkel is important. If the NSA was not surveying her communications, it was only because it was unable to do so," "How could the NSA not want to listen in on the person rated by Forbes as the second most powerful person in the world after President Obama?”

The point of the "game" is to induce a chilling effect on private conversations to limit the available discourse about decisions. The French President becomes afraid not to just make a particular decision, but also to even discuss it. It should be obvious that knowledge of spying changes bevahior during diplomatic relations.

This gives inordinate power to organizations that have greater spying capability--the United States with its NSA will have more influence in global affairs than France, even if we both have one vote in the UN security council.

Whether this has "always gone on", though, is irrelevant to whether it is antithetical to democracy.

> The French President becomes afraid not to just make a particular decision, but also to even discuss it.

I doubt the French President or any world leader is so cowed by the premise of NSA spying that it paralyzes them into inaction and submission. Paranoid people on the internet who think that the CIA might black-bag them for typing "Snowden" into Google may be that naive, but the actual political elites are likely far more aware of, and accepting of, the global surveillance network than you or I.

>Whether this has "always gone on", though, is irrelevant to whether it is antithetical to democracy.

That's true, but an assertion of a global political chilling effect remains speculative at best. If anything, the constant leaks about NSA spying seems to have the opposite effect.

The NSA is spying for a reason, and it's not just because they enjoy the challenge. Rather, they want to effect change.

How can spying effect change?

1. Providing knowledge to the US to improve our decision making

2. Providing intelligence to the US to change French decision making

3. Using (1) and (2) effectively so that 100% spying is not even necessary. That is, France chooses the path that would result from spying anyway

Yes, but I don't buy into the premise of French (or any particular government's) policy being primarily influenced or directed by a chilling effect created by NSA spying.

4. To give American companies unfair advantages in the workspace.

As a public figure a president is very vulnerable unless he has absolutely nothing to hide from the public, IMHO, but he is only vulnerable as soon as he knows he is spied on. Which happened here.

Anyone in that position who doesn't assume they're being spied on at all times, or who would let that realization intimidate them, doesn't deserve the job.

I'm pretty sure they only black-bag the people typing "Snowden" into DuckDuckGo.

But the main message to me from the leaks is that despite America knowing everything, the government usually decides to act like it knows nothing.

> This gives inordinate power to organizations that have greater spying capability--the United States with its NSA will have more influence in global affairs than France, even if we both have one vote in the UN security council.

The political term for this is Power Projection: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_projection

The US president is listening to the current French president conversations, while the current French president is listening to the former French president conversations.

Better than in the 90s, whent he French president was using his anti-terrorist powers to listen to the conversations of good looking TV stars!

Each plays a different game. Only the general public and politicians make a fuss about this. The general public is shocked because they don't know, politicians act shocked because they must. People in Intelligence are a bit more clinical about it because they're not politicians. But even in the Intelligence Community, it's amazing how much gung-ho some former Intelligence Officers display.

You take "The Art of Intelligence" and it's so oversimplified and naive it's unbearable. I refuse to believe the author, an Ambassador at Large, thinks that way. His assets are brave and courageous, other nations' assets are traitors and evil. It's all good guys (him) vs. bad guys (others) and there's absolutely no way an Intelligence Officer, anywhere in the world, who is not mentally challenged, can think that way. It's people who don't know terrorism and have had nothing to do with it who have the most clear cut, black and white, views.

Contrast with this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnEKEfkdrOU

Who says the exact same thing as Michael Scheuer (former Intelligence Officer tasked with Bin Laden).

https://youtu.be/E0dPy2XCst8?t=6m29s

Describing what he says as blunt is an understatement. In that video, he says some things about Bin Laden that would get anyone thrown in a hole somewhere for apologia for terrorism. That's almost a eulogy.

You are making the assumption that spying is common, so it is justified. Or even that if spying results in favorable outcome, that it's justified.

But I ask, favorable to whom?

>You are making the assumption that spying is common, so it is justified.

There isn't a single sentence in what I wrote where I made this assumption. This is what you perceived I assumed.

My point wasn't on the ethics of spying which I haven't addressed at all in my reply. My point was on the reaction different people have to spying.

> "How could the NSA not want to listen in on the person rated by Forbes as the second most powerful person in the world after President Obama?”

He can rest assured that the USA never saw France as no2 in anything, except maybe gastronomy.

When Europe was reshaped at the end of WW2, De Gaul was not present on the table. It was Roosevelt, Churchil and Stalin who got the spoils.

I believe the only reason France enjoyed a sort of leadership in Europe was because Germany historically was seen as too dangerous to cut loose and the UK never felt part of Europe.

The US via Marshall's plan and the global money recycling scheme (Bretton Woods) made of a broken Germany a surplus country and the European powerhouse we all know and love today. Of course German culture (protestantism) had a lot to do with it. So, indirectly the US put Germany on a the road to become the most powerful country in Europe in the long run anyway.

>> "How could the NSA not want to listen in on the person rated by Forbes as the second most powerful person in the world after President Obama?”

>He can rest assured that the USA never saw France as no2 in anything, except maybe gastronomy.

Merkel is the German chancellor...

I know. Hopefully not for long, however the way I read it, he was talking about the French PM.

de Gaulle, not De Gaul.

Maybe he was thinking of Asterix.

> So, indirectly the US put Germany on a the road to become the most powerful country in Europe

i'm no geopolitical or history expert (i just like to travel and observe) but i don't think it was indirect at all. germany (and central europe in general) has shown that unless it is powerful, rich and well-integrated with the rest of the world, it will lead to very, very bad things. if you've ever been to germany and talked with normal people, they are absolutely convinced that their way is the best. this is something to be harnessed and directed, not rejected.

the post-war plan was to ensure that happened, on our terms. the soviets nearly fucked it all up, but thankfully we won that war also. we drive around in german cars, the whole of europe borrows their money, we eat their food, drink their beer, buy their overpriced coffee grinders and other assorted bauhaus-influenced home goods, and that makes everybody happy. we're all nice and fat and contented with our shiny and delicious german stuff and stuff financed by german cash, and they don't feel the need to forcibly take over the world to shove it down our throats (or worse). it's a fantastic arrangement that's worked out swimmingly so far.

fwiw, the refugee crisis and mass immigration from the middle east into this region concerns me.

p.s. the same goes for japan too, except their border policy is basically completely racist (even though in my experience japanese people are extremely friendly and open-minded -- it's a very strange and unique dichotomy) so they'll just invent robots to do the work that the non-existant immigrants would have done. german industrial robots are no slouch but so far the domestic/service situation is still handled by people, as far as i can tell. in japan they're trying to automate away all that inconvenient people-to-people stuff.

From wiki:

While Secretary General [of NATO], Ismay is also credited as having been the first person to say that the purpose of the alliance was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down," a saying that has since become a common way to quickly describe the alliance.

> He can rest assured that the USA never saw France as no2 in anything, except maybe gastronomy.

I think in your haste to put down France you misread the quote which in fact states what you say later on in your response. Here's the quote again:

> "Chancellor Merkel is important. If the NSA was not surveying her communications, it was only because it was unable to do so," "How could the NSA not want to listen in on the person rated by Forbes as the second most powerful person in the world after President Obama?”

It's quite clear to me that they're referring to Merkel and her communication being spied upon, not the French President.

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