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Spain expels two US spies for infiltrating secret service
- fimdomeio 3y agoThe most astounding statement is this: “What do Americans have to pay for if we give them everything they ask for?” they noted. These sources insist that Spain openly collaborates with the United States, and always exchanges information. According to these sources, the number of times in which Spain has refused to share information of interest to Washington is “between one and zero.” Either this is a lie, the USA and Spain have zero competing interests, Spain absolutely ignores it's own laws and regulations or Spain gave up on being an independent country. I can't imagine a world where the USA shares everything with Spain, so I can't image why would Spain share everything with the USA.
- throwbadubadu 3y ago> why would Spain share everything with the USA. Wishful (respectively forceful) thinking :)
- refurb 3y agoHow would the USA know that Spain is sharing everything unless they checked?
- collaborative 3y agoSpain is largely a vassal state of the US but also of Germany. As such, it depends on these countries for most of its intelligence. It would be counter productive for Spain to refuse cooperation given its membership of EU and NATO. Spain is on the firing line of NATO's "enemies" because of its relatively weak state, so it would be very audacious of Spain to betray its masters. Spain's political class certainly wouldn't have the appetite for it
- orwin 3y ago> Spain is largely a vassal state of the US but also of Germany Wow, such a claim? Germany, really? Do you have evidence?
- morelisp 3y agoThe 2009 Euro debt crisis made it clear that Spain has little economic autonomy even when Germany's demands are, economically speaking, insane.
- generic92034 3y agoSo (for example) Portugal was able to choose a non-austerity strategy to get out of the GFC while Spain was coerced by Germany to follow an austerity strategy? If that is what you mean, could you please provide any kind of evidence for that coercion? What makes Spain special in that regard (e. g. compared to Portugal)?
- tgv 3y agoNothing. Spain had a real-estate bubble, and it collapsed.
- morelisp 3y agoThe main reason I think it played out differently is that Portugal is considered more united in its other political views than Spain. Even in Portugal the 2015 election that ended (sort of) the austerity policies was highly contentious/fractious. Madrid could not tolerate that kind of clusterfuck without also risking e.g. Catalonian independence. Related to that Portugal also does not have the other half Spain does, the US political backing which works in tandem with the German economic power. That said, if you listen to German politicians they still don't believe Portugal is out of the GFC and would reinstitute austerity there in a heartbeat given the chance.
- generic92034 3y ago
- rewmie 3y ago> Either this is a lie (...) It don't think there is any doubt that it was a bald-faced lie. The comment reads like a puerile feign of ignorance.
- H8crilA 3y agoIt's cheap propaganda for internal purposes. Everyone spies on everyone. Like there are, IDK, Czech Republic spies in the US. Discovery of "friendly" spies is handled gracefully - no one gets killed, no one gets jumped in a back alley by unidentified perpetrators, and no one even goes to prison. That is assuming you don't turn the spies around to work for you. I don't get it why this is on HN, it is not particularly significant and it is definitely not related to tech.
- mettamage 3y agoI mostly agree with your comment. However, HN isn’t only about tech. HN is about fascination for the world from a scientific angle. Most on HN are techies, so that explains its tech bias. “anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.” [1] “Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.” ^ This does not justify the current topic that strongly. It does justify the fascination for the world from a science perspective angle. It also corroborates your part about stating it’s not particularly significant. For me, the good faith view of all of this IMO is that having a discussion about friendly states spying on each other with this crowd is interesting enough. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- threeseed 3y agoBut there is nothing new or intellectual about this. Expelling diplomats is about as minor and inconsequential event as you can get.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- avar 3y ago> Spain absolutely ignores it's own laws and regulations. Which regulation would those be? The GDPR and similar laws explicitly exclude state intelligence agencies and the like. > I can't imagine a world where the USA shares everything with Spain, so I can't image why would Spain share everything with the USA. Spain can assume the US has sufficient resources to know anything it cares to anyway, and Spain doesn't have an empire spanning the globe. The US does. One party has a lot more to lose by revealing everything.
- onli 3y agoWhy do you think that? Germany didn't even protest when it was revealed that the USA spied on the phone of chancellor Merkel, the BND sent siphoned german internet traffic to the NSA in an act of treason, and flight passenger data is sent to the USA without receiving such data in return. And again and again the EU enables data transfer programs into the USA, even though it is known the USA does not protect that data from access and that thus all such agreements are illegal. In such questions, European states repeatedly bow completely to the USA. I don't see why it would be different with Spain.
- cheese_van 3y agoHow do you mean protest? Do you mean people in the streets? No, that didn't happen. Do you mean inter-governmental protest in the form of summoning an ambassador and dressing them down? In the form of sternly worded demarches asking for clarification? In diplomatic discussions that frankly announced our relationship was injured? Yes that very much happened. A relationship was impaired and Germany was quite diplomatically clear about it. Diplomatic protest does not need to be public to be effective.
- onli 3y agoYou are correct. I indeed remembered that not even the ambassador was summoned, but according to https://www.dw.com/de/nsa-sp%C3%A4hangriff-us-botschafter-einbestellt/a-17180796 https://www.dw.com/de/nsa-sp%C3%A4hangriff-us-botschafter-ei... at least that did happen.
- hash872 3y agoCountries spy on each other constantly, it's just that articles about the US doing so receive far more clicks. Europe does a similar amount of spying on the US, here's a couple articles where it's revealed or they admit it: France admits they spied on the US: (https://www.france24.com/en/20131024-nsa-france-spying-squarcini-dcri-hollande-ayrault-merkel-usa-obama https://www.france24.com/en/20131024-nsa-france-spying-squar...) Germany was found to be spying on the US: (https://www.dw.com/en/german-intelligence-spied-on-white-house/a-39365418 https://www.dw.com/en/german-intelligence-spied-on-white-hou...)
- krisoft 3y ago> Either this is a lie, the USA and Spain have zero competing interests, Spain absolutely ignores it's own laws and regulations or Spain gave up on being an independent country. Or the spy chiefs in the USA know exactly what they can ask from their Spanish counterparts and how so they avoid asking things the Spanish cannot legally fulfill. For example the USA can ask for Spanish defense information, which the Spanish agencies share with them since they see themselves playing on the same team. The USA can ask for information on criminals and terrorist and non-affiliated spies operating in Spain, which Spain shares with them since they are playing in the same team. And presumably the USA is wise enough to not ask for compromat on Spanish leaders or things which undermine legitimate Spanish business interests. > or Spain gave up on being an independent country If you want to put it that bluntly. Have you heard the term Pax Americana? This is how it looks like from the ground up. Countries have the choice of being aligned with America (in which case they receive various boons) or not (in which case they receive pain and suffering in all kind of diffuse ways). Countries (and individuals in the countries) then make the rational choice. If you want to be crass about it you can describe it as giving up on being an independent country. In reality it is more like they accept to colour inside certain lines to achieve a greater prosperity for themselves. Things like they can build regular weapons, but they can’t aim those weapons at the USA, or they can’t sell those weapons to unaligned countries.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- germandiago 3y agoUSA is supporting Morocco and Morocco has had a long problem with Sahara and claims for Ceuta and Melilla, spanish cities. Also they want to take over at some point Canary Islands. Americans are playing two faces here: Spain is our friend and at the same time they are supporting Morocco. It is not nice IMHO. Last year after more than four decades of Shara conflict between Morocco and saharauis the soanish government suddenly changed position for this topic with zero explanation. Something government knows most citizens are against. I think americans forced Spain to do it. On the way we had a conflict with Algeria, which is who provided us with cheap gas. It is a stupid movement forced from outside. At the same time, Israel normalized relations with Morocco, putting an embassy there. And now they are in Sahara mining... Is this all by chance? I doubt it. It is all planned. Against our own interests. Pure geopolitics.
- MomoXenosaga 3y agoIt's because of immigrants. Look on a map. Morocco is promising to stop African migrants and take back their own. Has nothing to do with America.
- germandiago 3y agoYes, our american friends just forced that move for Sahara and just did this: https://www.elespanol.com/mundo/africa/20231208/marruecos-consolida-poder-militar-terrestre-llegada-primeros-tanques-abrams-eeuu/815418951_0.html https://www.elespanol.com/mundo/africa/20231208/marruecos-co... Who do you think sold that to our neighbours? No, they are playing two decks and harming us on the way. I do not have anything against americans per se, but they have a big responsibility on what happened in Europe lately and they are also playing two decks there for many reasons I won't explain here now, but Nordstream/Germany's russian gas is one of the topics, if not the topic. Anyway, I prefer to leave it here and comment more about other news, particularly technology, which is what I enjoy the most. Feel free to reply, I just do not want to start a long thread about this since it is inside HN policies to talk about these topics the less the better :) Thanks for your exchange.
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
- spaniard89277 3y agoIt's clear for many spaniards that the US is playing against us. The whole deal with Algeria, Morocco and Israel is pretty shady to say the least. I don't have our secret services in high regard, but I expect them to at least do something to defend our interests.
- skwirl 3y ago>I can't imagine a world where the USA shares everything with Spain, so I can't image why would Spain share everything with the USA. I'm sure it's not everything, but it's certainly asymmetric given that Spain (like any NATO country) outsources much of its security to the United States.
- testHNac 3y ago[dead]
- tejohnso 3y ago> or Spain gave up on being an independent country. This doesn't seem all that unlikely, for certain contexts at least.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- kelnos 3y agoIsn't this pretty much an open secret? Doesn't everyone spy on everyone else, even when they're nominally allies? It's telling that Spain merely expelled these people, rather than locking them up and/or torturing them for information. I'm sure there's some sort of gentlemen's agreement that this is what you do when you catch an ally's spies.
- threeseed 3y agoYes everyone spies on each other. It's why embassies largely exist these days. The only reason you would expel someone is if it was overly egregious. Not sure what it is particularly special about this event.
- toyg 3y ago> The only reason you would expel someone is if it was overly egregious. Or if the two parties are in a tit-for-tat situation of some sort. There might be some diplomatic sabre-rattling going on, on some other topic. Also, more often than not you don't expel anyone because 1) it reveals the reach of your intel skills, and 2) it removes the capability to feed misinformation to the other party.
- notaspy_ 3y ago[flagged]
- germandiago 3y agoThere must be IMHO. For these things what you usually have is an arrest as a minimum yet they let them go. On top of that it was made public. Spain is turning at this moment, btw, in a dictatorship and I am not exaggerating. I am spanish. I am figuring out what to do and whether to leave or not. I have my family here so that's what keeps me here. Otherwise I would have left already.
- toyg 3y ago> Spain is turning at this moment, btw, in a dictatorship Seems a bit of a hyperbole for "Spain is under a fragile minority government". By that metric, the UK is a dictatorship in most years.
- petesergeant 3y agoBuilding up your intelligence capability in a country is much more easily done while they’re an ally than waiting for them to elect an insane, unfriendly government, and doing it then
- hulitu 3y ago> than waiting for them to elect an insane, unfriendly government Why would an "unfriendly government" be insane ?
- petesergeant 3y agoTwo adjectives next to each other doesn't imply a causal relationship between them
- andrelaszlo 3y agoI thought it was interesting how close the law maps to CIA [0]: Confidentiality - disclose (procure - intent to disclose) Integrity - falsify Availability - disable > Article 584 of the Penal Code, which punishes “a Spaniard who, with the purpose of helping a foreign power, association or international organization, procures, falsifies, disables or discloses information classified as reserved or secret, that is likely to harm national security or national defense.” Not super surprising maybe, information has always been important, but it makes me wonder what the oldest written equivalent of the CIA triad is. I found some references to Caesar using it [1], but no actual quotes. Edit: It seems like some of the downvoters think I made up some words that I associate with the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) but I'm referring to the CIA acronym in information security [0]. I can understand the confusion in this context, sorry! 0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_security#Key_concepts https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_security#Key_con... 1: https://security.stackexchange.com/a/47700 https://security.stackexchange.com/a/47700
- HPsquared 3y agoProbably something by Aristotle on what constitutes "trustworthiness". (Just a guess)
- user_named 3y agoWhat? You just made that up. It doesn't "map" to anything
- andrelaszlo 3y agoHaha possibly! It doesn't seem so far-fetched to me but I suppose we have different perspectives.
- lupusreal 3y ago[dead]
- andrelaszlo 3y ago@lupusreal I've added a comment that might clarify what I meant. Thanks for explaining what didn't make sense to you, despite getting downvoted.
- 4gotunameagain 3y ago“It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal.” ― Henry Kissinger, Nobel peace prize laureate, War criminal.
- 0xDEF 3y agoThat (taken out of context quote) was true during the Cold War because of the cynical realpolitik that Kissinger himself was a proponent of. For example he was against the US supporting Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur war. That would likely have led to Israel being wiped out but not before launching nuclear missiles at Arab states and the Eastern European Soviet/Warsaw pact states that were supporting and arming the Arab states. Knowing Kissinger that was most likely his goal; lose Israel but turn every major industrial center in the Soviet Union and Warsaw pact into nuclear wasteland.
- reducesuffering 3y agoUse the full quote, don't be misleading. "Word should be gotten to Nixon that if Thieu meets the same fate as Diem, the word will go out to the nations of the world that it may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.” It was obviously a hypothetical, "if we let this happen, countries will lose trust in being a friend."
- fortzi 3y agoWill you update your comment to include the full quote? This is very misleading. Is that on purpose?
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- PeterStuer 3y agoUS infiltration is ubiqiotous in the EU, so there has to be more to this. Which lines were crossed?
- hulitu 3y agoIt was rape but it looked like consented sex.
- Log_out_ 3y agoDesperate Russian divide and conquer stuff?
- greatgib 3y agoAs always, there will be a 10 minute outcry from public officials "so choking" and then nothing. Business as usual. No consequence so it can go on. According to these sources, the number of times in which Spain has refused to share information of interest to Washington is “between one and zero.” That is interesting how ball sucking is this country when you consider that it is sure that the opposite is not true (us accepting to share everything that they have)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- thinkingemote 3y agoMajority of spying by nation states is industrial or corporate, its not much to do with sexy international politics. It's uninteresting and you will not see a movie about the subject. It's likely they were getting details from a Spanish company, alternatively it may be something like details about a trade deal. You could probably find out which area the area chief was working on and look back from there.
- paulproteus 3y agoAnother possibility is that the Spanish officials were bribed to sell information to people pretending to be the United States, but not actually representing the United States.
- throwaway_skip 3y agoThis has Hunter’s fingerprints all over it. I’m a fan by the way.
- solumunus 3y agoITT: people saying this is and isn’t normal with the basis of their evidence being “feels”. None of you apparently have any relevant expertise, yet have very strong opinions.
- ratg13 3y agoYour statement also describes yourself and the irony drips from your comment. You don’t need expertise to have a moral compass. Just like all of the data the US took from Petrobras and claimed they needed it “just in case” and that they weren’t using it to benefit US oil companies. “Trust me bro” is US policy at this point and it and the people that support it are an embarrassment.
- jaimex2 3y agoWhy werent they executed?