4 ms·

You're misinterpreting what I said. I'm an American, and I live in London. It worries the crap out of me that the U.S. government can listen to all my calls,

You're misinterpreting what I said. I'm an American, and I live in London. It worries the crap out of me that the U.S. government can listen to all my calls, read my emails, for all I know track my anti-NSA HN posts as part "international" data collection. It worries me that they can do the same thing to my non-American friends, with even less oversight, and can have people extradited by compliant governments to face U.S. charges without traditional due process. But that's not the argument I'm making. Spying on a foreign government is _not the same thing_ as a spying on civilians. I expect foreign governments to be spying on the US, and I expect the US to spy on foreign governments, even if I find it distasteful that they're spying on friendly nations. But that's not the same level of seriousness as unchecked spying on civilians. In a society where rule of law matters, unchecked government power spy on innocent civilians is an existential threat to democracy. That's a different thing than spying on heads of state.

Fixnum 13y ago
I think Vidarh's point is that the US has a long history of manipulating and overthrowing democratically elected governments, a practice certainly made easier when the CIA or NSA have access to the complete communications of the politicians (or candidates). That's certainly an 'existential threat to democracy', just not the one you vote in (with some nominal power to exercise 'oversight' over such agencies).
genwin 13y ago
You should expect the US to spy on foreign governments, because they'll certainly try, but you should not wish it or support it, because history shows that millions of innocent lives have been made miserable by US spying. If we spied only for defense it could be a different story. Instead we spy so that US corporations can maximally profit, at the expense of innocents.

Fixnum 13y ago

I think Vidarh's point is that the US has a long history of manipulating and overthrowing democratically elected governments, a practice certainly made easier when the CIA or NSA have access to the complete communications of the politicians (or candidates). That's certainly an 'existential threat to democracy', just not the one you vote in (with some nominal power to exercise 'oversight' over such agencies).

genwin 13y ago

You should expect the US to spy on foreign governments, because they'll certainly try, but you should not wish it or support it, because history shows that millions of innocent lives have been made miserable by US spying. If we spied only for defense it could be a different story. Instead we spy so that US corporations can maximally profit, at the expense of innocents.