Frank, US embassies around the world are put through frequent debugging procedures. Your wife is probably well aware of that.
Bug sweeps are standard procedure in embassies and of course there's an awareness that not only the hosting country might try to plant bugs. Some places you know there will be bugs, others there might, other places the technology is so evolved that the place will be bugged without there being any physical bugs to detect. There are different levels of technology and there are different levels of trust or mis-trust. A rogue 3rd world state which would have to run wires to the other side of the street will not lead to too much headache but if your most powerful ally with an overpowering technological potential at their disposal abandons some of the major rules of international law then there should be reason for concern and a re-evaluation of trust.
Also, under a different administration there would probably have been a different reaction.
I quote from the Nobel Peace Price Committee 2009:
"Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened."
Frank, US embassies around the world are put through frequent debugging procedures. Your wife is probably well aware of that.
Bug sweeps are standard procedure in embassies and of course there's an awareness that not only the hosting country might try to plant bugs. Some places you know there will be bugs, others there might, other places the technology is so evolved that the place will be bugged without there being any physical bugs to detect. There are different levels of technology and there are different levels of trust or mis-trust. A rogue 3rd world state which would have to run wires to the other side of the street will not lead to too much headache but if your most powerful ally with an overpowering technological potential at their disposal abandons some of the major rules of international law then there should be reason for concern and a re-evaluation of trust.
Also, under a different administration there would probably have been a different reaction.
I quote from the Nobel Peace Price Committee 2009:
"Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened."
Read it twice. Didn't see anything about recreational bugging.
The bugging in question predated Obama, and I haven't seen anything that indicates he knew about it. I'm not much interested either way.
So the NSA spooks heard Angela calling Berlusconi a scheisskopf? Who cares, really?
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
rootlesscosmo said:
I'm simply trying to figure out why you shrug at a gov't monitoring your personal emails but are up-in-arms about gov'ts spying on each other.
I'm not agreeing/disagreeing; i'm trying to understand your viewpoint.
If I'm reading Frank right, it's the idea of one sovereign power spying on the head-of-state of another friendly sovereign power that he finds unacceptable. I kind of see his point. Germany and the US are supposed to be (more or less) on the same side, so why spy on your "allies"?
[EDIT: OK, I see now that you guys have gone over that already, so the above is just me being Captain Obvious. Move along, nothing to see here, etc.]
As for the "monitoring your personal emails" thing, I still think the furore over this is largely a result of people assuming that, because the technology exists to do it, then of course every government must be doing it. Which leaves a lot of logistical questions hanging. For instance, at its peak of operations, the Stasi's combined staff and snitches ran into the high hundreds of thousands, so where are all those neighbours who work for the NSA (or its local equivalent)? Because if your government is really spying on you, someone - hundreds of someones, in fact - needs to be sat at a terminal analysing all that data, otherwise what's the point? It's just a lot of money being spent doing something simply because you can, rather than there being any real objective to it.
For instance, at its peak of operations, the Stasi's combined staff and snitches ran into the high hundreds of thousands, so where are all those neighbours who work for the NSA (or its local equivalent)? Because if your government is really spying on you, someone - hundreds of someones, in fact - needs to be sat at a terminal analysing all that data, otherwise what's the point? It's just a lot of money being spent doing something simply because you can, rather than there being any real objective to it.
you serious? there's now software that can do this. it's called "big data." the stasi didn't have that. one super computer in an NSA basement could prolly process more data in a day than all the internal security services of the warsaw pact countries did in a yr. and it's cheap.
Comments
Bug sweeps are standard procedure in embassies and of course there's an awareness that not only the hosting country might try to plant bugs. Some places you know there will be bugs, others there might, other places the technology is so evolved that the place will be bugged without there being any physical bugs to detect. There are different levels of technology and there are different levels of trust or mis-trust. A rogue 3rd world state which would have to run wires to the other side of the street will not lead to too much headache but if your most powerful ally with an overpowering technological potential at their disposal abandons some of the major rules of international law then there should be reason for concern and a re-evaluation of trust.
Also, under a different administration there would probably have been a different reaction.
I quote from the Nobel Peace Price Committee 2009:
"Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened."
Read it twice. Didn't see anything about recreational bugging.
The bugging in question predated Obama, and I haven't seen anything that indicates he knew about it. I'm not much interested either way.
So the NSA spooks heard Angela calling Berlusconi a scheisskopf? Who cares, really?
If I'm reading Frank right, it's the idea of one sovereign power spying on the head-of-state of another friendly sovereign power that he finds unacceptable. I kind of see his point. Germany and the US are supposed to be (more or less) on the same side, so why spy on your "allies"?
[EDIT: OK, I see now that you guys have gone over that already, so the above is just me being Captain Obvious. Move along, nothing to see here, etc.]
As for the "monitoring your personal emails" thing, I still think the furore over this is largely a result of people assuming that, because the technology exists to do it, then of course every government must be doing it. Which leaves a lot of logistical questions hanging. For instance, at its peak of operations, the Stasi's combined staff and snitches ran into the high hundreds of thousands, so where are all those neighbours who work for the NSA (or its local equivalent)? Because if your government is really spying on you, someone - hundreds of someones, in fact - needs to be sat at a terminal analysing all that data, otherwise what's the point? It's just a lot of money being spent doing something simply because you can, rather than there being any real objective to it.
you serious? there's now software that can do this. it's called "big data." the stasi didn't have that. one super computer in an NSA basement could prolly process more data in a day than all the internal security services of the warsaw pact countries did in a yr. and it's cheap.