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Comments like this demonstrate a severe lack of understanding around how intelligence today in the US works, especially in a post-Snowden world. Our government

Comments like this demonstrate a severe lack of understanding around how intelligence today in the US works, especially in a post-Snowden world. Our government routinely performs dystopian forced mass-surveillance of citizens accompanied by gag orders. > When Google starts to have any inclination to put a bag over my head if I search the wrong thing, sure. > When Google starts having an interest in being able to blackmail people to get them to spy on their country or give up IP, then sure. The CCP could have all the data they want on you but there is almost nothing they can do about it because an ocean and a military separates you, outside some fringe cases. The NSA, however, can and will use data they collect on you against you. The US government is no stranger to this, where COINTELPRO [1] used the results of domestic spying to try to put an early end to MLK and the Civil Rights Movement. The US has caused demonstrable harm to citizens via surveillance yet you seem to support it compared to the less dangerous alternative out of some misplaced sense of patriotism. > When the US Government can unilaterally demand security cooperation from Google in any way, shape, or form like the Chinese government can, then sure. Have you not heard of PRISM? The NSA? National Security Letters? The US routinely can and does force companies to give up information on citizens in the form of dragnet surveillance. One way to do this is a National Security Letter [2]. > Google wants to sell ads. They don’t care about your porn preferences, whether you have a mistress, or whether you do drugs And neither does the CCP. Neither does the NSA, actually, unless they want something from you and to force you to do something. > The Government of China wants power. They want influence. They want information. They want control. And no Chinese company is allowed to refuse its pursuit of those. Welcome to participating on a global scale. The US isn't the only country allowed to be a superpower. It's probably not good if China surpasses the US, but the US also doesn't have anywhere close to the moral high ground w.r.t. domestic surveillance as you mention. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO [2]: https://www.eff.org/issues/national-security-letters https://www.eff.org/issues/national-security-letters

diryawish 6y ago
The US absolutely has the moral high ground compared to any communist country and it’s not even fucking close.
- sacredcows 6y ago
  Take care of the education of your poorest citizens, stop orchestrating coups, stop imprisoning black men en masse, give people single-payer healthcare. Then we can talk about moral high ground.
  - sidlls 6y ago
    While bad, not one of these rises to the level of genocide and oppression that form the core of China's tactics to control its population and exert influence abroad, and, yes, that does mean from a moral perspective the US is better. "Terrible" is still better than "inhumane".
  - emptysongglass 6y ago
    I'm really sick of this. The Verge's article [1] is the yardstick for just how far America's own self-hatred will go. To compare the present genocide of an entire culture to America's sins, right now, would be laughable but that so many Americans have bought wholesale into its fantasy. If you were to gather up the prison industrial complex and the tens of thousands failed by privatized healthcare, it would be a drop in the bucket. The CCP's orchestrated intent to scrub out 2 peoples and their religions from the face of the earth on their way to a 3rd complete, divisible nation (Taiwan) has not been seen since Nazi Germany. This is the scale of atrocity and disrespect for the basic right of a human being to say, "I am who I am", we are dealing with at this very moment in human history. Please, please, consider that however tough things are in the US for very many people, it can change with a vote. That is a democracy, however broken and fragile. [1] https://www.theverge.com/21355465/tiktok-us-china-information-nationalism-online-propaganda https://www.theverge.com/21355465/tiktok-us-china-informatio...
    - boomboomsubban 6y ago
      >. To compare the present genocide of an entire culture to America's sins, right now, would be laughable Really? As much as I dislike cultural genocide, such as the still ongoing cultural genocide against Native Americans, I fail to see how it is a graver sin than the Iraq War. And please, tell me how my vote can stop it.
MattGaiser 6y ago
> Our government routinely performs dystopian forced mass-surveillance of citizens accompanied by gag orders. With nowhere near the same implications. > The US government is no stranger to this, where COINTELPRO [1] used the results of domestic spying to try to put an early end to MLK and the Civil Rights Movement. The big difference being that COINTELPRO was not done with the authorization of Congress and instead lead to a Congressional investigation and later the Senate Intelligence Committee to provide oversight [1]. The airing of those abuses culminated in additional oversight of domestic intelligence activities. In China, the airing of those abuses would end with the journalists being censored/bagged. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee > The CCP could have all the data they want on you but there is almost nothing they can do about it Oceans are a great shield against blackmail... > One way to do this is a National Security Letter A National Security Letter is hardly an absolute order. They can be reviewed by a judge. They cannot include requests for content like messages. Those require a warrant. They can be beaten in court. They are not a broad tool that the NSA can apply as they wish for whatever ends they wish. Not only that, citizens are allowed to oppose it and elect legislators to repeal them. > And neither does the CCP. Neither does the NSA, actually, unless they want something from you and to force you to do something. Except there is a massive difference in what each wants from you. > but the US also doesn't have anywhere close to the moral high ground w.r.t. domestic surveillance as you mention. The lack of prisons full of political dissidents who committed thought crimes on the internet puts them head and shoulders above. The existence of an independent judiciary does as well.
- boomboomsubban 6y ago
  >instead lead to a Congressional investigation and later the Senate Intelligence Committee to provide oversight Though, it lead to no actual punishment for anyone involved in the program. Further, the only reason such a show trial was possible was that the CIA accidentally missed a box of records when they destroyed all of the evidence. What use is oversight when the agency can destroy all the evidence?
  - ethbro 6y ago
    > What use is oversight when the agency can destroy all the evidence? What use is {x} when someone can {attempt to avoid x}? Because we live in the real world, and no authority is omniscient and absolute.
lern_too_spel 6y ago
> The NSA, however, can and will use data they collect on you against you. The NSA can't collect your data if you are a US citizen or are a non-US citizen inside the US, and they certainly can't "use [it] against you." > Have you not heard of PRISM? The US routinely can and does force companies to give up information on citizens in the form of dragnet surveillance. PRISM does not use dragnet surveillance. It's right there in the slides that Snowden leaked and repeated in the documents the government declassified. https://www.cnet.com/news/no-evidence-of-nsas-direct-access-to-tech-companies/ https://www.cnet.com/news/no-evidence-of-nsas-direct-access-...
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  The NSA cannot legally do so (usually, exceptions exist), or utilise the information specifically in a court of law. Legal definitions of what does or does not specifically constitute "search" are vague to the point of meaninglessness. The four other members of the Five Eyes are under no such restrictions, among others, and parallel construction can at least putatively separate the fruit from its poisonous tree. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod/exclusive-u-s-directs-agents-to-cover-up-program-used-to-investigate-americans-idUSBRE97409R20130805 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod/exclusive-u-s-dir... https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/450393-nsa-improperly-collected-us-phone-records-in-october-new-documents https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/450393-nsa-impr... https://theintercept.com/2019/10/10/fbi-nsa-mass-surveillance-abuse/ https://theintercept.com/2019/10/10/fbi-nsa-mass-surveillanc... https://www.foxnews.com/politics/newly-declassified-court-documents-reveal-fbi-fisa-violations-in-targeting-americans https://www.foxnews.com/politics/newly-declassified-court-do... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/09/nsa-loophole-warrantless-searches-email-calls https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/09/nsa-loophole-w... Say you're the NSA. By law, there are certain sorts of spying you're not lawfully allowed to do on Americans. (And agency rules constraining you too.) But wait. Allied countries have different laws and surveillance rules. If there are times when America's spy agency has an easier time spying on Brits, and times when Britain's spying agency has an easier time spying on Americans, it's easy to see where the incentives lead. Put bluntly, intelligence agencies have an incentive to make themselves complicit in foreign governments spying on their own citizens. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/is-the-five-eyes-alliance-conspiring-to-spy-on-you/277190/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/is-the-...
andreilys 6y ago
The CCP could have all the data they want on you but there is almost nothing they can do about it because an ocean and a military separates you, outside some fringe cases Interesting, I’m sure you’re aware of the CCP coercing critics (who are US citizens) by threatening their families in China? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-wray-idUSKBN24825V https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-wray-idUSKBN248...
- idrios 6y ago
  I'm sure that's among the cases he meant when he said "fringe cases". Most Americans don't have families in China
  - andreilys 6y ago
    Why are these fringe cases? If anything these are the obvious cases where the CCP can use data they have on you (i.e. who your family members are, your history of criticism, etc.) and use that to silence you.
    - idrios 6y ago
      Yeah, but it only works when they have some kind of leverage on you. A very lazy google search tells me that there are about 4 million Chinese Americans, which is 1.3% of the population. So 1.3% of Americans could be manipulated this way. That is a lot, and I think 'fringe' is hyperbole, but I still agree with the sentiment that the typical American can feel pretty safe from China. Expats and Americans with family or friends in China are obvious exceptions, as are people who have sent explicit photos or had affairs on Chinese apps, and people who are in debt with Chinese companies. Those are what comes to mind for me, and maybe there are more ways China could threaten an individual in the US, but I still think it's at most 5% of Americans who could be personally targeted by China (and I do think it's good to ban TikTok because I do not want that number to go up). Meanwhile US surveillance affects 100% of Americans. We have stronger rights and don't have to fear being disappeared for dissenting, but mass surveillance has the power to suppress or misdirect speech and there are entities in the US that are figuring out how to use that.
frequentnapper 6y ago
>The CCP could have all the data they want on you but there is almost nothing they can do about it because an ocean and a military separates you, outside some fringe cases. Not yet, but they recently passed a law that says otherwise.
arduanika 6y ago
Interesting you should mention Snowden. The phrase that haunted me from that first interview with Snowden is "turnkey tyranny". The powers of the US security apparatus and its FAANG deputies are vast, unparalleled. My belief (I may be wrong) is that Five Eyes are still far and away the premier intelligence superpower, with China a distant second (or Russia, I don't know). The difference is that China actively abuses the powers it has, restricts its citizens on the internet, surveils their legal rights (not just their borrowing status a la credit ratings) with the state-controlled social credit scores, and continues to track apostates who emigrate abroad. It's China that is working on the model modern tech-enabled concentration camp for ethnic minorities in Xinjiang (although the word genocide would be hyperbolic here: We have no evidence of extermination or of plans in that direction). Moreover, the CCP has gone in the wrong direction under Xi, away from a stable oligarchy that was progressive in certain areas, and towards dictatorship and lockdown. If a true totalitarian ever controlled the US security apparatus, such a tyrant could turn that turnkey. (I'm not talking about Trump, who might try some unconstitutional tricks, but when he's defeated in court, tweets something nasty about the judge, then abides by the ruling). Right now, however, the US still has restraint, has checks & balances, which are imperfect but let's not underestimate them or be ungrateful. Similarly, although things are fraught with traditional US allies like NATO, it's not like the US is leveraging even a fraction of its sigint supremacy in, say, agricultural trade negotiations with France. Point is, US & allied capabilities are scarier than any other country by far, but the way that China (and Russia, though overhyped) actively use their power in practice is way more insidious. The media has educated people to call out "whatabout-ism" when they see it in the Trump crowd. Let's call it out when we see it from the fascist CCP and their apologists.
- salawat 6y ago
  >although the word genocide would be hyperbolic here: We have no evidence of extermination or of plans in that direction Clearly you haven't been following up or digging to hard, as forced sterilization programs qualify in the U.N. working definition of genocide. Just because there are no ovens and gas chambers, does not mean it isn't happening. Further, your classification of what Trump has been doing as "Tricks" cements for me at it least some level of disingenuity. There are things you don't do as an official of the State, and the Trump admin has gone leaps and bounds passed just about every other historical example I could find in terms of trying to coax the line of Unconstitutionality you can getaway with just that much further. Though I appreciate the distinction you're making between Trump who'll push as far as he get away with vs an individual who refuses to be stopped. However, I do absolutely agree with you on the relative capabilities of the intelligence community of the West. The level of integration of data streams strived for is nothing short of "Total Information Awareness". There is no room in a world of men for such power. I'm not even convinced it should be wielded under the auspices of being a national secutrity/defense apparatus; however as long as one Nation is willing to have one, it's pretty much inevitable everyone else will too.

diryawish 6y ago

The US absolutely has the moral high ground compared to any communist country and it’s not even fucking close.

sacredcows 6y ago
Take care of the education of your poorest citizens, stop orchestrating coups, stop imprisoning black men en masse, give people single-payer healthcare. Then we can talk about moral high ground.
- sidlls 6y ago
  While bad, not one of these rises to the level of genocide and oppression that form the core of China's tactics to control its population and exert influence abroad, and, yes, that does mean from a moral perspective the US is better. "Terrible" is still better than "inhumane".
- emptysongglass 6y ago
  I'm really sick of this. The Verge's article [1] is the yardstick for just how far America's own self-hatred will go. To compare the present genocide of an entire culture to America's sins, right now, would be laughable but that so many Americans have bought wholesale into its fantasy. If you were to gather up the prison industrial complex and the tens of thousands failed by privatized healthcare, it would be a drop in the bucket. The CCP's orchestrated intent to scrub out 2 peoples and their religions from the face of the earth on their way to a 3rd complete, divisible nation (Taiwan) has not been seen since Nazi Germany. This is the scale of atrocity and disrespect for the basic right of a human being to say, "I am who I am", we are dealing with at this very moment in human history. Please, please, consider that however tough things are in the US for very many people, it can change with a vote. That is a democracy, however broken and fragile. [1] https://www.theverge.com/21355465/tiktok-us-china-information-nationalism-online-propaganda https://www.theverge.com/21355465/tiktok-us-china-informatio...
  - boomboomsubban 6y ago
    >. To compare the present genocide of an entire culture to America's sins, right now, would be laughable Really? As much as I dislike cultural genocide, such as the still ongoing cultural genocide against Native Americans, I fail to see how it is a graver sin than the Iraq War. And please, tell me how my vote can stop it.

MattGaiser 6y ago

> Our government routinely performs dystopian forced mass-surveillance of citizens accompanied by gag orders. With nowhere near the same implications. > The US government is no stranger to this, where COINTELPRO [1] used the results of domestic spying to try to put an early end to MLK and the Civil Rights Movement. The big difference being that COINTELPRO was not done with the authorization of Congress and instead lead to a Congressional investigation and later the Senate Intelligence Committee to provide oversight [1]. The airing of those abuses culminated in additional oversight of domestic intelligence activities. In China, the airing of those abuses would end with the journalists being censored/bagged. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee > The CCP could have all the data they want on you but there is almost nothing they can do about it Oceans are a great shield against blackmail... > One way to do this is a National Security Letter A National Security Letter is hardly an absolute order. They can be reviewed by a judge. They cannot include requests for content like messages. Those require a warrant. They can be beaten in court. They are not a broad tool that the NSA can apply as they wish for whatever ends they wish. Not only that, citizens are allowed to oppose it and elect legislators to repeal them. > And neither does the CCP. Neither does the NSA, actually, unless they want something from you and to force you to do something. Except there is a massive difference in what each wants from you. > but the US also doesn't have anywhere close to the moral high ground w.r.t. domestic surveillance as you mention. The lack of prisons full of political dissidents who committed thought crimes on the internet puts them head and shoulders above. The existence of an independent judiciary does as well.

boomboomsubban 6y ago
>instead lead to a Congressional investigation and later the Senate Intelligence Committee to provide oversight Though, it lead to no actual punishment for anyone involved in the program. Further, the only reason such a show trial was possible was that the CIA accidentally missed a box of records when they destroyed all of the evidence. What use is oversight when the agency can destroy all the evidence?
- ethbro 6y ago
  > What use is oversight when the agency can destroy all the evidence? What use is {x} when someone can {attempt to avoid x}? Because we live in the real world, and no authority is omniscient and absolute.

lern_too_spel 6y ago

> The NSA, however, can and will use data they collect on you against you. The NSA can't collect your data if you are a US citizen or are a non-US citizen inside the US, and they certainly can't "use [it] against you." > Have you not heard of PRISM? The US routinely can and does force companies to give up information on citizens in the form of dragnet surveillance. PRISM does not use dragnet surveillance. It's right there in the slides that Snowden leaked and repeated in the documents the government declassified. https://www.cnet.com/news/no-evidence-of-nsas-direct-access-to-tech-companies/ https://www.cnet.com/news/no-evidence-of-nsas-direct-access-...

dredmorbius 6y ago
The NSA cannot legally do so (usually, exceptions exist), or utilise the information specifically in a court of law. Legal definitions of what does or does not specifically constitute "search" are vague to the point of meaninglessness. The four other members of the Five Eyes are under no such restrictions, among others, and parallel construction can at least putatively separate the fruit from its poisonous tree. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod/exclusive-u-s-directs-agents-to-cover-up-program-used-to-investigate-americans-idUSBRE97409R20130805 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dea-sod/exclusive-u-s-dir... https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/450393-nsa-improperly-collected-us-phone-records-in-october-new-documents https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/450393-nsa-impr... https://theintercept.com/2019/10/10/fbi-nsa-mass-surveillance-abuse/ https://theintercept.com/2019/10/10/fbi-nsa-mass-surveillanc... https://www.foxnews.com/politics/newly-declassified-court-documents-reveal-fbi-fisa-violations-in-targeting-americans https://www.foxnews.com/politics/newly-declassified-court-do... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/09/nsa-loophole-warrantless-searches-email-calls https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/09/nsa-loophole-w... Say you're the NSA. By law, there are certain sorts of spying you're not lawfully allowed to do on Americans. (And agency rules constraining you too.) But wait. Allied countries have different laws and surveillance rules. If there are times when America's spy agency has an easier time spying on Brits, and times when Britain's spying agency has an easier time spying on Americans, it's easy to see where the incentives lead. Put bluntly, intelligence agencies have an incentive to make themselves complicit in foreign governments spying on their own citizens. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/is-the-five-eyes-alliance-conspiring-to-spy-on-you/277190/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/06/is-the-...

andreilys 6y ago

The CCP could have all the data they want on you but there is almost nothing they can do about it because an ocean and a military separates you, outside some fringe cases Interesting, I’m sure you’re aware of the CCP coercing critics (who are US citizens) by threatening their families in China? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-wray-idUSKBN24825V https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-wray-idUSKBN248...

idrios 6y ago
I'm sure that's among the cases he meant when he said "fringe cases". Most Americans don't have families in China
- andreilys 6y ago
  Why are these fringe cases? If anything these are the obvious cases where the CCP can use data they have on you (i.e. who your family members are, your history of criticism, etc.) and use that to silence you.
  - idrios 6y ago
    Yeah, but it only works when they have some kind of leverage on you. A very lazy google search tells me that there are about 4 million Chinese Americans, which is 1.3% of the population. So 1.3% of Americans could be manipulated this way. That is a lot, and I think 'fringe' is hyperbole, but I still agree with the sentiment that the typical American can feel pretty safe from China. Expats and Americans with family or friends in China are obvious exceptions, as are people who have sent explicit photos or had affairs on Chinese apps, and people who are in debt with Chinese companies. Those are what comes to mind for me, and maybe there are more ways China could threaten an individual in the US, but I still think it's at most 5% of Americans who could be personally targeted by China (and I do think it's good to ban TikTok because I do not want that number to go up). Meanwhile US surveillance affects 100% of Americans. We have stronger rights and don't have to fear being disappeared for dissenting, but mass surveillance has the power to suppress or misdirect speech and there are entities in the US that are figuring out how to use that.

frequentnapper 6y ago

>The CCP could have all the data they want on you but there is almost nothing they can do about it because an ocean and a military separates you, outside some fringe cases. Not yet, but they recently passed a law that says otherwise.

arduanika 6y ago

Interesting you should mention Snowden. The phrase that haunted me from that first interview with Snowden is "turnkey tyranny". The powers of the US security apparatus and its FAANG deputies are vast, unparalleled. My belief (I may be wrong) is that Five Eyes are still far and away the premier intelligence superpower, with China a distant second (or Russia, I don't know). The difference is that China actively abuses the powers it has, restricts its citizens on the internet, surveils their legal rights (not just their borrowing status a la credit ratings) with the state-controlled social credit scores, and continues to track apostates who emigrate abroad. It's China that is working on the model modern tech-enabled concentration camp for ethnic minorities in Xinjiang (although the word genocide would be hyperbolic here: We have no evidence of extermination or of plans in that direction). Moreover, the CCP has gone in the wrong direction under Xi, away from a stable oligarchy that was progressive in certain areas, and towards dictatorship and lockdown. If a true totalitarian ever controlled the US security apparatus, such a tyrant could turn that turnkey. (I'm not talking about Trump, who might try some unconstitutional tricks, but when he's defeated in court, tweets something nasty about the judge, then abides by the ruling). Right now, however, the US still has restraint, has checks & balances, which are imperfect but let's not underestimate them or be ungrateful. Similarly, although things are fraught with traditional US allies like NATO, it's not like the US is leveraging even a fraction of its sigint supremacy in, say, agricultural trade negotiations with France. Point is, US & allied capabilities are scarier than any other country by far, but the way that China (and Russia, though overhyped) actively use their power in practice is way more insidious. The media has educated people to call out "whatabout-ism" when they see it in the Trump crowd. Let's call it out when we see it from the fascist CCP and their apologists.

salawat 6y ago
>although the word genocide would be hyperbolic here: We have no evidence of extermination or of plans in that direction Clearly you haven't been following up or digging to hard, as forced sterilization programs qualify in the U.N. working definition of genocide. Just because there are no ovens and gas chambers, does not mean it isn't happening. Further, your classification of what Trump has been doing as "Tricks" cements for me at it least some level of disingenuity. There are things you don't do as an official of the State, and the Trump admin has gone leaps and bounds passed just about every other historical example I could find in terms of trying to coax the line of Unconstitutionality you can getaway with just that much further. Though I appreciate the distinction you're making between Trump who'll push as far as he get away with vs an individual who refuses to be stopped. However, I do absolutely agree with you on the relative capabilities of the intelligence community of the West. The level of integration of data streams strived for is nothing short of "Total Information Awareness". There is no room in a world of men for such power. I'm not even convinced it should be wielded under the auspices of being a national secutrity/defense apparatus; however as long as one Nation is willing to have one, it's pretty much inevitable everyone else will too.