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Can someone explain the rationale for leaking this? I have been a strong critic of NSA domestic surveillance, but what is described in the article seems to be t
by blennon 11y ago
Can someone explain the rationale for leaking this? I have been a strong critic of NSA domestic surveillance, but what is described in the article seems to be the appropriate use of the U.S. intelligence apparatus.
- dflock 11y agoI don't know their motivation, but if I wanted to effect real change to the surveillance state in the USA, I would want the Israeli political lobby on my side in Washington.
- tptacek 11y agoIsrael doesn't give a shit; they've owned up all sorts of US infrastructure, and even (famously) had double agents planted in the US.
- kasey_junk 11y agoAnd actively lobby for their early release from prison.
- ryanlol 11y agoThat's kind of expected.
- wavefunction 11y agoBut not appreciated.
- ryanlol 11y agoBy whom? Not lobbying for the release of your own spies would be very much out of the ordinary.
- kasey_junk 11y agoMy point was that even though they are allies there are normal & public interactions around spying. So yes, very much expected. The unexpected thing is people assuming allies don't spy on each other.
- dflock 11y agoAnd if they could hamper the CIA/NSA, even a little bit, they wouldn't bother?
- azernik 11y agoI feel like this quote from Yuval Steinitz just has to be a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgment of that. Or it's just the most bald-faced lie I've heard in ages - not sure which interpretation is more funny. “We know that the Americans spy on the whole world, and also on us, also on their friends. But still, it is disappointing, inter alia because, going back decades already, we have not spied nor collected intelligence nor hacked encryptions in the United States.”
- wavefunction 11y agoWell, I met a probable Israeli spy in-artfully posing as an art-student in Colorado when I was 19 working at an ISP that had purchased some wireless tech from an Israeli firm. I suspect it is fully-in-cheek.
- dsq 11y agoHow did you know he was a spy? Did he act sneaky?
- idoco 11y agoFollow the money. Israeli sources claim that the reason that this information is published at this timing is a German-Israeli drone deal in which the US Predator lost - http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/international/europe/2016/01/13/bundeswehr-germany-lease-israeli-drones/78723784/ http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/international/europ... They also claim that since 2011 (The last "hacking" incident) there was a major change in the way that drone communication is encrypted. Edit: changed 2010 to 2011
- runjake 11y agoThe article pretty clearly details interceptions as recent as 2012. And maybe it still goes on, we don't know, because this apparently came from the 2013 Snowden leak.
- idoco 11y agoThese are not my claims, they are taken from Israeli sources. They probably have there own interests too. The only event I found from 2012 is labeled as 'regular collects of Heron TP carrying weapons' I'm not sure what it means.
- dogma1138 11y agoCould mean anything from them being able to intercept video from the tail cam to them just tracking the drones based on signal / radar information. All the imagery from the Israeli drones is from circa 2009-2010.
- bendykstra 11y agoThe US drone fleet was not more secure at that time. In 2008, recordings of drone feeds were discovered on the laptops of Shi’ite militants. Four years later, less than half the drone fleet had been upgraded to use encrypted video. http://www.wired.com/2012/10/hack-proof-drone/ http://www.wired.com/2012/10/hack-proof-drone/
- ronreiter 11y agoIf spying on allies sounds appropriate to you, then I'm not sure you understand why Snowden is even an issue.
- tptacek 11y agoAll allies spy on each other. A lot. Germany's biggest espionage issue isn't Russia; it's France.
- privong 11y ago> If spying on allies sounds appropriate to you, then I'm not sure you understand why Snowden is even an issue. I disagree. The important revelations from Snowden (in my opinion) is not nation-states spying on (officals of) other nation-states, it's nation-states conducting dragnet surveillance on their own citizens and citizens of other countries.
- 13thLetter 11y agoTrue, but there was a big to-do about US spying on German officials a little while back. If it was that horrible and offensive for us to spy on the German government, it's also just as horrible and offensive for us to spy on the Israeli government. (My personal view is that the US should definitely spy on every government in the world, and they're welcome to try to spy on us if they want, because it's dumb to pretend that it's not going to happen and then pitch a fit when what everyone knew was happening is revealed to be happening. But under that policy it's not better or worse to target Germany as opposed to Israel.)
- meepmorp 11y agoThere's a political agenda at work here, which views all intelligence activities as being morally equivalent, and thus this is as wrong as warrantless domestic surveillance.
- krapp 11y agoI believe the rationale is that there are still Snowden documents to leak, so they will be leaked until they no longer generate revenue. The public interest ceased to be an issue as soon as the documents were handed off to the media.
- caskance 11y agoRemittite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.