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> Furthermore, all large countries, like Britain, France and Germany, engage in this kind of espionage against "friendly" countries Why is this tolerated? Is i

by Zak 9y ago

> Furthermore, all large countries, like Britain, France and Germany, engage in this kind of espionage against "friendly" countries Why is this tolerated? Is it, perhaps that surveillance a country cannot legally conduct internally is conducted by its "friends", sometimes resulting in relevant information being shared with its own intelligence services?

azernik 9y ago
It's tolerated because the harm is small and the cost of retaliation is high enough that the target countries aren't willing to go very far to punish it. The spying carried out between allies is often about military information that the target country already has. See, for example, the Jonathan Pollard case, where Israel stole US intelligence on Iran. The spy was imprisoned for almost 30 years (considered a bit extreme by the Israeli system, though that may reflect different norms about incarceration in general). Similarly, an American spy (Yosef Amit) sent information about Israeli troop deployments to the US, and was in prison for 7 years. Both sides worked hard to get their respective spies released, and were stubborn about not releasing the ones they had in custody, but because the countries were allied no one was willing to go to the mat over the issue.
mc32 9y ago
What are they supposed to do, declare war on each other? Spying isn't a new craft. It's also arguably necessary given inter-national opaqueness on certain issues. Knowing what motivates your neighbors allows you to navigate the relationships better
- Zak 9y ago
  Some options that aren't war include: * Make a very public stink about it. Publicize exactly what was done, how and who was involved. Attempt to attract the interest of the media in the hope that the electorate of the country in question will find spying on allies objectionable. * Raise the issue with the EU parliament or possibly the UN. This may not have hard consequences, but officials having to answer for the behavior of their spy agencies can put pressure on those spy agencies. * Use any of the many cooperative agreements between the countries in question as leverage to demand action against the officials who authorized the spying, evidence that it won't happen again, or compensation. Of course, all of these have potential downsides, and I've ordered them from what I think is low risk to higher risk. The fact that the usual result is a quiet diplomatic protest and sweeping the event under the rug suggests that governments think this kind of spying is acceptable, and the only problem is getting caught.
kybernetikos 9y ago
> surveillance a country cannot legally conduct internally is conducted by its "friends", sometimes resulting in relevant information being shared with its own intelligence services? We know that this definitely happens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes#Domestic_espionage_sharing_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes#Domestic_espionage_s... Whether that is the reason more isn't done against foreign intrusions is hard to say. It seems that in this case many people would have liked to punish the UK for it, but there weren't many reasonable options for doing so.

by Zak 9y ago

azernik 9y ago

It's tolerated because the harm is small and the cost of retaliation is high enough that the target countries aren't willing to go very far to punish it. The spying carried out between allies is often about military information that the target country already has. See, for example, the Jonathan Pollard case, where Israel stole US intelligence on Iran. The spy was imprisoned for almost 30 years (considered a bit extreme by the Israeli system, though that may reflect different norms about incarceration in general). Similarly, an American spy (Yosef Amit) sent information about Israeli troop deployments to the US, and was in prison for 7 years. Both sides worked hard to get their respective spies released, and were stubborn about not releasing the ones they had in custody, but because the countries were allied no one was willing to go to the mat over the issue.

mc32 9y ago

What are they supposed to do, declare war on each other? Spying isn't a new craft. It's also arguably necessary given inter-national opaqueness on certain issues. Knowing what motivates your neighbors allows you to navigate the relationships better

Zak 9y ago
Some options that aren't war include: * Make a very public stink about it. Publicize exactly what was done, how and who was involved. Attempt to attract the interest of the media in the hope that the electorate of the country in question will find spying on allies objectionable. * Raise the issue with the EU parliament or possibly the UN. This may not have hard consequences, but officials having to answer for the behavior of their spy agencies can put pressure on those spy agencies. * Use any of the many cooperative agreements between the countries in question as leverage to demand action against the officials who authorized the spying, evidence that it won't happen again, or compensation. Of course, all of these have potential downsides, and I've ordered them from what I think is low risk to higher risk. The fact that the usual result is a quiet diplomatic protest and sweeping the event under the rug suggests that governments think this kind of spying is acceptable, and the only problem is getting caught.

kybernetikos 9y ago

> surveillance a country cannot legally conduct internally is conducted by its "friends", sometimes resulting in relevant information being shared with its own intelligence services? We know that this definitely happens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes#Domestic_espionage_sharing_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes#Domestic_espionage_s... Whether that is the reason more isn't done against foreign intrusions is hard to say. It seems that in this case many people would have liked to punish the UK for it, but there weren't many reasonable options for doing so.