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The controversy which caused this misunderstanding is that incidentally collected SIGINT (i.e. not intentionally targeted) of UK citizens, collected by NSA, was

The controversy which caused this misunderstanding is that incidentally collected SIGINT (i.e. not intentionally targeted) of UK citizens, collected by NSA, was shared back with GCHQ. Because this 180 degree myth about skirting domestic law by spying on each other's citizens is so widespread, it actually makes accurate information difficult to find. The Wikipedia page is squatted by editors who refuse to admit they are wrong, but this article is pretty clear [0]; "The partnership has one core rule, that the members agree not to spy on each other." Wikipedia implies this is limited to governments but it is not. [0] https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/we-need-five-eyes-spy-network-oversight https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/we-need-five-eyes...

TeMPOraL 3y ago
Uh oh. I'll need to look into this myself. I thought I've learned enough about keeping track of the provenance and validity of any information I consume, and weighing my beliefs by it - but this one, if true, will be something that completely blindsided me. I'm wondering how I never heard anything like this over what's now few weeks short of a decade.
- boomboomsubban 3y ago
  How are you going to look into a secret agreement yourself? What the original aim of the agreement is somewhat unknown, but the Snowden documents revealed multiple examples of spying on each others civilians and sharing the results. Such as, https://web.archive.org/web/20140125021330/http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/06/21/uk-usa-security-britain-idUKBRE95K10620130621 https://web.archive.org/web/20140125021330/http://uk.reuters... You've never heard anything like this because it's the intelligence agencies responses to the Snowden documents. They're usually mentioned in the same articles but nobody really buys their excuses.
  - ChrisKnott 3y ago
    NSA previously hosted the original UK-USA 1946 agreement[0] which was declassified in 2010 i.e. pre-Snowden (seems to 404 now). It is limited to sharing of "foreign communications" which is defined as those not being UK/USA. The Snowden leaks included material acknowledging that this was the purpose of the agreement. The reason the incidental collection was controversial was _because_ it was against a strict reading of the agreement. See this article[1] which I believe is quoting straight from Snowden leaks; "[The March 1946 UKUSA agreement] has evolved to include a common understanding that both governments will not target each other's citizens/persons. However, when it is in the best interest of each nation, each reserved the right to conduct unilateral Comint action against each other's citizens/persons. "Under certain circumstances, it may be advisable and allowable to target second-party persons and second-party communications unilaterally when it is in the best interests of the US." Note that this is saying that they reserve the right to do it unilaterally i.e. without the knowledge of the other, and this is considered against the purpose of the agreement. I stand by the statement that the general understanding of the agreement - that it is a way for countries to request surveillance of their own citizens to skirt domestic law - is 180 degrees wrong. The agreement is the opposite. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20120202160554/https://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/ukusa/agreement_outline_5mar46.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20120202160554/https://www.nsa.g... [1] https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/02/history-of-5-eyes-explainer https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/02/history-of-5-e...
    - boomboomsubban 3y ago
      You keep looking at what the intelligence agencies are publicly saying and ignoring the leaked documents showing they are regularly spying on each other's citizens and then using the agreement to share the data. Like this comment >Note that this is saying that they reserve the right to do it unilaterally i.e. without the knowledge of the other, and this is considered against the purpose of the agreement Yes, the US independently decides to spy on Brits. What makes it malicious is they then share that data with the British. The UK didn't request anything, but the end result is the UK intelligence agencies having sensitive data on UK citizens.
      - ChrisKnott 3y ago
        My quote wasn't said publicly, it was from the Snowden leaks
        boomboomsubban 3y ago
        My mistake, that one part (that says it's fine for us to spy on Five Eyes citizens) was a directive to staff, not the public. Nothing in my post changes.
  - AtlasBarfed 3y ago
    Yes, if they are not spying on OTHER countries in the agreement, what that actually means something worse: The five countries are actively spying on their own people if they are respecting the agreement, Constitutions be damned. Because modern governments are going to spy on everything they can. We already know FBI agents used domestic spying infrastructure to stalk women and mistresses and ex-wives. That level of casual use means there is a 99.9999% chance it is used by the government for tracking journalists, leakers, liberal activists (but not right wing ones), profiling uppity citizens, etc. If facebook and internet ad companies have complete information on you and your associates and post history and beliefs and location, the government has it. Multiple government have it. We're already running shameful (Obama and Trump) concentration camps for immigrants (aka "lesser" humans), have detained US citizens as enemy combatants, performed extrajudicial assassinations on US citizens overseas, have two gestapo departments (Immigration Customs Enforcement and Customs Border Patrol) with radicalized right wing membership in their ranks. All it takes is a charismatic strongman (probably from the right but can be from the left too), a false flag event like Gulf of Tonkin, do McCarthy hearings in Congress to stoke fear of external enemies within us, and start rounding up people. The US could turn into a fascist regime in record time aided by complete IT awareness, soon with AI for profiling and analysis, AI agents for complete propaganda, and all the legal, historical, and dirty pool history to enable it.
haroldp 3y ago
> https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/we-need-five-eyes-spy-network-oversight https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/we-need-five-eyes... This is an article for an AU government-funded policy think-tank, written by a China-hawk who is also a fellow at America's government-funded, war-hawk Center for Strategic and International Studies, saying that 5Eyes is actually fine. His main thrust seems to be that AU just needs super-effective oversight like the US has with its secret rubber-stamp courts and nothing-to-gain-from-it Congressional review. > The partnership has one core rule, that the members agree not to spy on each other. The US's core rule #4 is that you can't rifle through people's shit without convincing a judge of the crime you suspect them of committing, and why you need to look, and what the narrow limits of your search are. Yet here we are.
kornhole 3y ago
As I understand it, the 5 eyes are not allowed to spy on their citizens nor on the citizens of the partner nations. How are we here then discussing these problems?

TeMPOraL 3y ago

Uh oh. I'll need to look into this myself. I thought I've learned enough about keeping track of the provenance and validity of any information I consume, and weighing my beliefs by it - but this one, if true, will be something that completely blindsided me. I'm wondering how I never heard anything like this over what's now few weeks short of a decade.

boomboomsubban 3y ago
How are you going to look into a secret agreement yourself? What the original aim of the agreement is somewhat unknown, but the Snowden documents revealed multiple examples of spying on each others civilians and sharing the results. Such as, https://web.archive.org/web/20140125021330/http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/06/21/uk-usa-security-britain-idUKBRE95K10620130621 https://web.archive.org/web/20140125021330/http://uk.reuters... You've never heard anything like this because it's the intelligence agencies responses to the Snowden documents. They're usually mentioned in the same articles but nobody really buys their excuses.
- ChrisKnott 3y ago
  NSA previously hosted the original UK-USA 1946 agreement[0] which was declassified in 2010 i.e. pre-Snowden (seems to 404 now). It is limited to sharing of "foreign communications" which is defined as those not being UK/USA. The Snowden leaks included material acknowledging that this was the purpose of the agreement. The reason the incidental collection was controversial was _because_ it was against a strict reading of the agreement. See this article[1] which I believe is quoting straight from Snowden leaks; "[The March 1946 UKUSA agreement] has evolved to include a common understanding that both governments will not target each other's citizens/persons. However, when it is in the best interest of each nation, each reserved the right to conduct unilateral Comint action against each other's citizens/persons. "Under certain circumstances, it may be advisable and allowable to target second-party persons and second-party communications unilaterally when it is in the best interests of the US." Note that this is saying that they reserve the right to do it unilaterally i.e. without the knowledge of the other, and this is considered against the purpose of the agreement. I stand by the statement that the general understanding of the agreement - that it is a way for countries to request surveillance of their own citizens to skirt domestic law - is 180 degrees wrong. The agreement is the opposite. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20120202160554/https://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/ukusa/agreement_outline_5mar46.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20120202160554/https://www.nsa.g... [1] https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/02/history-of-5-eyes-explainer https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/02/history-of-5-e...
  - boomboomsubban 3y ago
    You keep looking at what the intelligence agencies are publicly saying and ignoring the leaked documents showing they are regularly spying on each other's citizens and then using the agreement to share the data. Like this comment >Note that this is saying that they reserve the right to do it unilaterally i.e. without the knowledge of the other, and this is considered against the purpose of the agreement Yes, the US independently decides to spy on Brits. What makes it malicious is they then share that data with the British. The UK didn't request anything, but the end result is the UK intelligence agencies having sensitive data on UK citizens.
    - ChrisKnott 3y ago
      My quote wasn't said publicly, it was from the Snowden leaks
      - boomboomsubban 3y ago
        My mistake, that one part (that says it's fine for us to spy on Five Eyes citizens) was a directive to staff, not the public. Nothing in my post changes.
- AtlasBarfed 3y ago
  Yes, if they are not spying on OTHER countries in the agreement, what that actually means something worse: The five countries are actively spying on their own people if they are respecting the agreement, Constitutions be damned. Because modern governments are going to spy on everything they can. We already know FBI agents used domestic spying infrastructure to stalk women and mistresses and ex-wives. That level of casual use means there is a 99.9999% chance it is used by the government for tracking journalists, leakers, liberal activists (but not right wing ones), profiling uppity citizens, etc. If facebook and internet ad companies have complete information on you and your associates and post history and beliefs and location, the government has it. Multiple government have it. We're already running shameful (Obama and Trump) concentration camps for immigrants (aka "lesser" humans), have detained US citizens as enemy combatants, performed extrajudicial assassinations on US citizens overseas, have two gestapo departments (Immigration Customs Enforcement and Customs Border Patrol) with radicalized right wing membership in their ranks. All it takes is a charismatic strongman (probably from the right but can be from the left too), a false flag event like Gulf of Tonkin, do McCarthy hearings in Congress to stoke fear of external enemies within us, and start rounding up people. The US could turn into a fascist regime in record time aided by complete IT awareness, soon with AI for profiling and analysis, AI agents for complete propaganda, and all the legal, historical, and dirty pool history to enable it.

haroldp 3y ago

> https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/we-need-five-eyes-spy-network-oversight https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/we-need-five-eyes... This is an article for an AU government-funded policy think-tank, written by a China-hawk who is also a fellow at America's government-funded, war-hawk Center for Strategic and International Studies, saying that 5Eyes is actually fine. His main thrust seems to be that AU just needs super-effective oversight like the US has with its secret rubber-stamp courts and nothing-to-gain-from-it Congressional review. > The partnership has one core rule, that the members agree not to spy on each other. The US's core rule #4 is that you can't rifle through people's shit without convincing a judge of the crime you suspect them of committing, and why you need to look, and what the narrow limits of your search are. Yet here we are.

kornhole 3y ago

As I understand it, the 5 eyes are not allowed to spy on their citizens nor on the citizens of the partner nations. How are we here then discussing these problems?