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Comment by nohuck13 | Hacker News Reader

"a document dated June 2012 shows that Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's emails were being read."

I have serious issues with the NSA spying on civilians, the lack of oversight, the notion that the NSA can use terrorism to justify whatever they want to do regardless of due process, just because they think it's really, really important, but... this particular thing doesn't really feel like news. Governments spy on other governments. They always have. I don't feel that threatens my civil liberties.

I think the danger of stories like this is that they muddy the waters. The fact that the NSA spies on foreign heads of state is _not the issue_. This kind of spying is what they were set up to do. If we all have knee-jerk reactions to this just because of the anti-NSA zeitgeist, we distract from the things the NSA is doing that actually pose serious threats to our civil liberties.

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Would you be upset if you found out Mexican secret services have been listening on Obamas calls? What about your calls? Do you like to be spied on?

Isn't it a bit egoistical to assume this affects or is interesting only for American citizens? "Well my Constitution says they can spy on everyone as well as they are not US citizens". Well a lot of other citizens are not US citizens and they don't really give a crap what is written in the US Constitution. They care that they are spied one. And it doesn't even matter if their own government turns around and spies right back on US citizens. They don't like it. They didn't like what NSA did before this either. NSA is in the news now and know more of what and how they do it. That is why there is talk about it. .

That's just it though, countries spy on each other. If that upsets you, then you're going to be disappointed forever. It's a bit like being upset that rain makes you wet, no kidding its rain. Countries spy on each other, friendly countries spy on each other because people lie all the time and do the opposite of what they say all the time. The lie to get their allies to do something for them (Iraq WMDs anyone?), they lie because they are covering something up, they lie to protect their own interests, and sometimes they just lie for pride.

It doesn't surprise or upset me one bit, because I know it's happening, I know it needs to happen, because why should I blindly trust any governments leaderships? And because lying and statesmanship seem to go hand in it will always happen. No country should ever trust another country blindly. As no citizen should trust its government blindly. Any government that does that is abdicating its responsibility to serve its citizens interests first, and any person that blindly trusts a government is going to be disappointed.

Think of spying like whistle blowing. We all want to know the truth.

2023:

"Countries spy on their citizens. If that upsets you, then you're going to be disappointed forever. Countries spy on their citizens because people lie all the time and do the opposite of what they say all the time."

Not everyone here is American. YOUR liberties might not be threatened by the NSAs spying outside the US, but given the US decades long history of interventions up to and including coups, invasions and destabilisation of democratically elected governments, US spying on foreign heads of state does threaten the civil liberties of a lot of people outside the US.

You're misinterpreting what I said. I'm an American, and I live in London. It worries the crap out of me that the U.S. government can listen to all my calls, read my emails, for all I know track my anti-NSA HN posts as part "international" data collection. It worries me that they can do the same thing to my non-American friends, with even less oversight, and can have people extradited by compliant governments to face U.S. charges without traditional due process.

But that's not the argument I'm making. Spying on a foreign government is _not the same thing_ as a spying on civilians. I expect foreign governments to be spying on the US, and I expect the US to spy on foreign governments, even if I find it distasteful that they're spying on friendly nations. But that's not the same level of seriousness as unchecked spying on civilians. In a society where rule of law matters, unchecked government power spy on innocent civilians is an existential threat to democracy. That's a different thing than spying on heads of state.

I think Vidarh's point is that the US has a long history of manipulating and overthrowing democratically elected governments, a practice certainly made easier when the CIA or NSA have access to the complete communications of the politicians (or candidates). That's certainly an 'existential threat to democracy', just not the one you vote in (with some nominal power to exercise 'oversight' over such agencies).

You should expect the US to spy on foreign governments, because they'll certainly try, but you should not wish it or support it, because history shows that millions of innocent lives have been made miserable by US spying.

If we spied only for defense it could be a different story. Instead we spy so that US corporations can maximally profit, at the expense of innocents.

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