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Comment by emodendroket | Hacker News Reader

While this is alarming in the context of ethnic cleansing in Western China, it's not really remarkable that foreign intelligence is operating in the US; what country on Earth does not have foreign intelligence agents operating in it?

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It's not about foreign intelligence, but rather the systematic surveillance and persecution of politically troublesome ethnic minorities – even abroad.

I don't imagine many foreign regimes have an intelligence operation in the U.S. dedicated to monitoring their own citizens.

I think you might be surprised.

Russia, I would expect. Cuba, maybe, although that'd be incredibly expensive given the number of ex-pats here relative to the government's budget. Iran conceivably. Mayyyybe North Korea, although are there enough to matter?

Who else would bother?

The United States collects information on every phone call its citizens make domestically but you find it implausible that they keep tabs on US citizens abroad? If anything, what's striking here is how hamfistedly the Chinese government is conducting this program, but I suppose that is because intimidation is the point.

I was specifically and explicitly discussing foreign operations on U.S. soil. Why are you beating me up for not talking about what the U.S. government is doing abroad?

I thought it was reasonable to extrapolate from what the US does. And in some cases, for instance, the Five Eyes countries often cooperate as a way of bypassing their own laws, so it's directly related.

Anyway, for a specific US example, Russia alerted the US about the Tsarnaev brothers. Anecdotally I heard from a South Korean about a visit in Japan from some official with photos warning him to stop associating with some North Koreans he'd met. Call me pessimistic but I think this is going on all the time everywhere.

(Sure would have been nice were Saudi Arabia keeping track of their subjects while on American soil prior to 9/11.)

Elements of the Saudi government likely assisted the effort, hence the ongoing lawsuits

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