4 ms·

It's been public knowledge since the 2013 Snowden leaks that the US spied on EU allies, even though this was probably an open secret in the gov circles way befo

It's been public knowledge since the 2013 Snowden leaks that the US spied on EU allies, even though this was probably an open secret in the gov circles way before that since all allies spy on each other constantly to keep themselves accountable("trust but verify"). Why are they pretending like this is something new for them when they knew about this way before? Burner phones at this point in time feels like trying birth control when your kid is already 13 years old.

watwut 2y ago
Cause escalations are worth reporting. That is why. And no, it is not the same.
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago
  Why isn't it "the same"? Was it somehow better when NSA under Clinton, Bush or Obama were wire tapping Germany and France? Here's why wiretapping allies is important: if the US agencies can wiretap you, then so can Russia, China, Israel, North Korea, etc. So if you notice your allies being sloppy with their InfoSec, you can also let them know about it before the enemies find out and exploit them. So it's your job to implement security that nobody else can tap. That's why citizens pay taxes to the defense sector, that's why you have intelligence and counter intelligence agencies, etc. they just need to do their fucking job instead of going after citizens who buy weed online or who call politicians dicks on Xitter.
  - throwaway290 2y ago
    because EU and US are less and less "allies"
    - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
      Can you explain why? Last time I checked we're still in NATO and my country stil hosts a US nuclear deterrent(against Russia). What part of that has changed? Temporary internal economic disputes (these happen all the time, especially between EU members) have little to do with military alliances against external threats.
      - throwaway290 2y ago
        No one expects NATO to exist for much longer. if your country is Denmark then your fellow NATO member recently threatened to invade you. The organization became a farce within a couple of months.
      - esafak 2y ago
        Trump sees it as a cost and says Europeans are not paying their fair share. He has been talking about it for ten years: https://www.factcheck.org/2016/05/whats-trumps-position-on-nato/ https://www.factcheck.org/2016/05/whats-trumps-position-on-n... I daresay his judgment is informed by his consideration of Russia as closer to an ally than a foe.
        FirmwareBurner 2y ago
        >Trump sees it as a cost. Which is true since defense money doesn't rain from the sky. Taxpayers on both sides of the atlantic are footing the bill. >He always says Europeans are not paying their fair share. Which is true when you look at per member spending percentages. Mostly Poland and a couple of other members have been meeting their agreed spending targets, but the rest have been slacking. >He has been talking about it for ten years: From your article: "While Trump has gone so far as saying that, as president, he would consider pulling the U.S. out of NATO if it is not restructured, we’ve found no instance of him saying he wants to do so at this point. And the Clinton campaign hasn’t been able to point to an example of Trump saying that either. In fact, it was during the interview with the Post, which initially brought attention to Trump’s feelings about NATO, that Trump said that he doesn’t want the U.S. to leave the alliance."
        throwaway290 2y ago
        It's not about the finances and being late on payment. The finances part is solved easily by politely saying "pay your part please or we gotta evict you". It's about members of supposed "alliance" threatening to roll tanks on each other. > While Trump has gone so far as saying that, as president, he would consider pulling the U.S. out of NATO if it is not restructured, we’ve found no instance of him saying he wants to do so at this point US won't because US needs NATO more than other countries. US is the only country to ever invoke article whatshernumber.
  - creaturemachine 2y ago
    Because that border officer demanding your phone so they can read your texts for anything critical of Trump is not spying.
  - drivingmenuts 2y ago
    Seems to me that if your country is not spying on allies and enemies alike, someone is not doing their job properly. The US spies on the EU and its member countries, just like the EU and its member countries spy on the US as they can. That's what they're supposed to be doing. Every country is going to massage "the truth" when dealing with others, so it's good to know how much massaging is going on. The big difference now is that the US (my own damn country) is not nearly as trustworthy as it was (for some value of trustworthy), nor is it nearly as competently led as it was (for some value of competence), nor is it behaving in rational and predictable ways (as compared to before). So, maybe we all just understand that it's in everyone else's best interest to keep a close eye on conditions in the US, because it's not going to get better any time soon. And we all should probably also understand that the US is just going to see enemies wherever it looks and that's not going to improve any time soon, either.
- jimbob45 2y ago
  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-24690055 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-24690055 Both US political parties were doing this decades ago to the German Chancellor. There is no escalation beyond her. If you're willing to tap her, you're willing to tap anyone.
  - watwut 2y ago
    The checking of phones and their content on the border is an escalation for both diplomats and non diplomats. It is simply not true that this was normal and NOT an escalation.
amarcheschi 2y ago
Before you might have at least expected officials to not have the same appreciation for Russia that this administration has. The less data they can lawfully or unlawfully get from eu politicians, the better for every european citizen i would also just be happy for something being done now even if it could have been done earlier
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago
  Last time I checked gas pipelines went form Russia to Germany, not to the US, and gas money was flowing from EU to Russia not from the US. And Vladimir Putin attended weddings of Austrian politicians, not American ones. And Austrian and German politicians, not American politicians, received high ranking jobs in Russian oil & gas companies at the end of their political mandates. So who's the one doing the Russian appreciation here, in practice I mean, not in virtue signaling?
  - amarcheschi 2y ago
    The EU is at least officially positioned against the russian invasion of Ukraine, although some politicians have a weird ex soviet fetish. The USA administration has taken a more nuanced approach than biden, on top of not imposing tariffs on Russia
impossiblefork 2y ago
That's a really American view, and that it's fine or some kind of trust-but-verify thing is really not correct. You can see this from the Spanish reaction to US spies recruiting people in Spanish intelligence, to France's desire to join Five Eyes provided that a mutual no-spying agreement were signed, etc. The reason you don't see stronger reactions is probably because countries were afraid of upsetting the US leadership, but being spied on is bad.

watwut 2y ago

Cause escalations are worth reporting. That is why. And no, it is not the same.

FirmwareBurner 2y ago
Why isn't it "the same"? Was it somehow better when NSA under Clinton, Bush or Obama were wire tapping Germany and France? Here's why wiretapping allies is important: if the US agencies can wiretap you, then so can Russia, China, Israel, North Korea, etc. So if you notice your allies being sloppy with their InfoSec, you can also let them know about it before the enemies find out and exploit them. So it's your job to implement security that nobody else can tap. That's why citizens pay taxes to the defense sector, that's why you have intelligence and counter intelligence agencies, etc. they just need to do their fucking job instead of going after citizens who buy weed online or who call politicians dicks on Xitter.
- throwaway290 2y ago
  because EU and US are less and less "allies"
  - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
    Can you explain why? Last time I checked we're still in NATO and my country stil hosts a US nuclear deterrent(against Russia). What part of that has changed? Temporary internal economic disputes (these happen all the time, especially between EU members) have little to do with military alliances against external threats.
    - throwaway290 2y ago
      No one expects NATO to exist for much longer. if your country is Denmark then your fellow NATO member recently threatened to invade you. The organization became a farce within a couple of months.
    - esafak 2y ago
      Trump sees it as a cost and says Europeans are not paying their fair share. He has been talking about it for ten years: https://www.factcheck.org/2016/05/whats-trumps-position-on-nato/ https://www.factcheck.org/2016/05/whats-trumps-position-on-n... I daresay his judgment is informed by his consideration of Russia as closer to an ally than a foe.
      - FirmwareBurner 2y ago
        >Trump sees it as a cost. Which is true since defense money doesn't rain from the sky. Taxpayers on both sides of the atlantic are footing the bill. >He always says Europeans are not paying their fair share. Which is true when you look at per member spending percentages. Mostly Poland and a couple of other members have been meeting their agreed spending targets, but the rest have been slacking. >He has been talking about it for ten years: From your article: "While Trump has gone so far as saying that, as president, he would consider pulling the U.S. out of NATO if it is not restructured, we’ve found no instance of him saying he wants to do so at this point. And the Clinton campaign hasn’t been able to point to an example of Trump saying that either. In fact, it was during the interview with the Post, which initially brought attention to Trump’s feelings about NATO, that Trump said that he doesn’t want the U.S. to leave the alliance."
        throwaway290 2y ago
        It's not about the finances and being late on payment. The finances part is solved easily by politely saying "pay your part please or we gotta evict you". It's about members of supposed "alliance" threatening to roll tanks on each other. > While Trump has gone so far as saying that, as president, he would consider pulling the U.S. out of NATO if it is not restructured, we’ve found no instance of him saying he wants to do so at this point US won't because US needs NATO more than other countries. US is the only country to ever invoke article whatshernumber.
- creaturemachine 2y ago
  Because that border officer demanding your phone so they can read your texts for anything critical of Trump is not spying.
- drivingmenuts 2y ago
  Seems to me that if your country is not spying on allies and enemies alike, someone is not doing their job properly. The US spies on the EU and its member countries, just like the EU and its member countries spy on the US as they can. That's what they're supposed to be doing. Every country is going to massage "the truth" when dealing with others, so it's good to know how much massaging is going on. The big difference now is that the US (my own damn country) is not nearly as trustworthy as it was (for some value of trustworthy), nor is it nearly as competently led as it was (for some value of competence), nor is it behaving in rational and predictable ways (as compared to before). So, maybe we all just understand that it's in everyone else's best interest to keep a close eye on conditions in the US, because it's not going to get better any time soon. And we all should probably also understand that the US is just going to see enemies wherever it looks and that's not going to improve any time soon, either.
jimbob45 2y ago
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-24690055 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-24690055 Both US political parties were doing this decades ago to the German Chancellor. There is no escalation beyond her. If you're willing to tap her, you're willing to tap anyone.
- watwut 2y ago
  The checking of phones and their content on the border is an escalation for both diplomats and non diplomats. It is simply not true that this was normal and NOT an escalation.

amarcheschi 2y ago

Before you might have at least expected officials to not have the same appreciation for Russia that this administration has. The less data they can lawfully or unlawfully get from eu politicians, the better for every european citizen i would also just be happy for something being done now even if it could have been done earlier

FirmwareBurner 2y ago
Last time I checked gas pipelines went form Russia to Germany, not to the US, and gas money was flowing from EU to Russia not from the US. And Vladimir Putin attended weddings of Austrian politicians, not American ones. And Austrian and German politicians, not American politicians, received high ranking jobs in Russian oil & gas companies at the end of their political mandates. So who's the one doing the Russian appreciation here, in practice I mean, not in virtue signaling?
- amarcheschi 2y ago
  The EU is at least officially positioned against the russian invasion of Ukraine, although some politicians have a weird ex soviet fetish. The USA administration has taken a more nuanced approach than biden, on top of not imposing tariffs on Russia

impossiblefork 2y ago

That's a really American view, and that it's fine or some kind of trust-but-verify thing is really not correct. You can see this from the Spanish reaction to US spies recruiting people in Spanish intelligence, to France's desire to join Five Eyes provided that a mutual no-spying agreement were signed, etc. The reason you don't see stronger reactions is probably because countries were afraid of upsetting the US leadership, but being spied on is bad.