8 ms·

NSA reform panel: Foreigners actually have privacy rights, too

111 points by wrongc0ntinent 13y ago

aet 13y ago
Also, peace on earth, pls.
girvo 13y ago
I'm a foreigner. And I'll be honest: I expect and assume the NSA (and any other country) will be spying on my traffic if they have access to it. If we assume (even though I disagree) that an NSA with capabilities like this is needed, then targeting me as a foreigner is... Well, sort of the point. Where the issue arises is that so much traffic goes through the US, a choice to use non US companies etc to avoid this becomes moot... So whenever I think about this, I end up back at square one and see the need for end to end encryption on everything. :( Edit: I'm in a Five Eyes country too, just FYI. Also, anyone ever get the feeling that the entire point of the internet is kind of... Incongruent with national borders and laws that live within them? I'm not arguing for anarchy or a new global order, truly I don't see a good way of reconciling the feeling of "square peg round hole" I get when I think about this stuff.
- win_ini 13y ago
  My gmail signature says "Privacy Notice: the NSA likely has a copy of this email". My own little bit of civil disobedience. Some people ask about it - and I explain that as Canadian living in the US - all my emails seem to fall under the umbrella of "ok to collect". I'm hoping this makes people think "hmmm, is there anything in this email I don't want to send?" And realize the true impact of surveillance state - changing what we think and communicate to others.
rayiner 13y ago
I'll echo Eric Posner's article on this issue: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/view_from_chicago/2013/11/the_nsa_should_keep_spying_on_foreign_leaders_and_citizens.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/view_from_ch.... There's a big difference between not spying on foreigners because the government is legally constrained from doing so, and not spying on foreigners because it's bad foreign policy. The former idea is ridiculous: we do not live under world government where sovereign nations are subject to international legal restrictions. The latter idea is eminently sensible.
- JulianMorrison 13y ago
  > we do not live under world government where sovereign nations are subject to international legal restrictions We ought to. The notion that nation-states are allowed to run rampage and be as anarchic as they please, internationally, is stupid.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    The problem with world government, and international frameworks in general, is that people who don't think like you can nonetheless legally bind you. At least to the extent that you mix international frameworks with democracy. My family emigrated to the U.S. from Bangladesh. It's a place where you see women covered up in the name of Islam, etc, and its getting worse over the last 20 years, not better. I have absolutely zero desire to be part of a democratic community with people who believe these things, and I bet if you're honest with yourself neither do you. But that's what happens when you mix international legal norms with democracy. You oblige yourself to follow the votes of people who have totally different cultural values to yourself. And this isn't a one-way street either. I imagine most Europeans would prefer not to be part of a democratic community that included Americans and their notably more conservative approach to many issues.
    - Joeri 13y ago
      The variation of opinion across the U.S. is at least as big as the variation across the planet. Just watch Louis Theroux's documentaries to see the evidence of this. You have extremist thinkers in any country. That is why we have democracy and political parties, to find compromise through negotiation, and why we have constitutions and courts of law to uphold them, to ensure basic rights cannot be trampled with the shifting of the political winds. The scale at which you apply democracy and constitutional rights doesn't really matter, except that it is unfair to apply it unequally. Now, I know what you're thinking. Can you take iran and israel and make one country out of them? What a ridiculous idea, it would only end in bloodshed. Here's the thing that's ridiculous to me: that we tolerate it when countries deny people their human rights because it happens inside their borders. Team America, World Police, right? Well, despite being a European I'm all for that if it means we finally get rid of human rights violations. It's not ok to deny women their human rights, so Iranians must eventually comply with that or face consequences before a court of law. Similarly it's not ok for Israelis and Palestinians to deny each other their human rights, so eventually they must comply with that or face consequences before a court of law. The way I see it, the discussion is not about what needs to be done, only on when it will come about. Economically, we've already formed frameworks that span the globe, like the WTO and IMF, and we have somehow managed to bring everyone into a single unified economic theory, even the communists. Now we just need to do the same thing for the other half of what governments do and unify the social theory.
sentenza 13y ago
Some of the other commenters seem to underestimate the extreme shift, caused by the NSA scandal, in how the US is perceived in some parts of Europe (and I guess Brasil). NSA surveillance (and hacking!) is pevasive of all that is digital. They even directly attack private individuals in Europe, considering them as worthless pawns. (Don't believe me? Google "Belgacom Hack") To those of us living in countries that had to struggle to rid themselves of the surveillance state, this _feels_ like enemy action. So why should people over here perceive a country that has declared them fair game to its large security apparatus be anything other than an enemy? Do not underestimate the consequences of the NSA actions. The mistrust that is growing right now could undo important parts of the digital globalization.
- arethuza 13y ago
  I was talking to someone who works for a company that does cloud hosting of very high end business applications (i.e. specialized finance systems) and he said they were seeing a lot of European companies starting to look at moving their hosting from the US to the EU - largely due to the recent NSA revelations. I must admit that this rather surprised me - but I have no reason to doubt him.
  - pg_is_a_butt 13y ago
    uh... i do lots of "very high end specialized finance systems" for the EU, and their laws specifically prohibit hosting servers in the US. even if the servers are located in EU, i'm not allowed to connect to them directly from the US to set them up, so i had to go over there once to set them up, and then later i just screen shared with an admin there (barcelona) and took over the keyboard and mouse on his computer to do updates. so either you're lying, your friend is lying, or they are breaking EU law.
  - bobzibub 13y ago
    There are other costs outside of the US also: Given that the NSA is so aggressive (all pipes being suspect now) the changes politically demanded will: -lessen convenience of all software and increasing the costs for users to interact with it in terms of time and complexity. -building and deploying security solutions can be expensive especially to those products that do not lend themselves to security--more engineering increases costs. -increase in cpu cycles as we all increase key sizes and introduce encryption where once there was none, or limited for authentication only. Id bet this will be a small drag on the world economy and certainly a drag on the world software industry. It could be thought of as a world wide tax.
anoncowherd 13y ago
Don't worry about the "inequality", they've always been spying on US citizens too, and still are! In fact, US citizens are their priority, because they're the ones the US government needs to control and keep in check to maintain their power.
e28eta 13y ago
I've been looking/waiting for an article like this ever since news of the NSA spying was released (but haven't been looking particularly hard). All of what I've seen previously discussed whether the spying has been legal/appropriate to do to US Citizens, while I've always felt it has been a bad idea regardless of citizenship. I haven't really thought it through, but I sometimes wish that the international blowback does happen, and happens in a big way. I think the US government has betrayed the world's trust, and I would like to see repercussions. As a software engineer working in Silicon Valley for a company that sells software internationally, it would not be good for my industry. However, my country's morality compass seems to be broken, and I'd appreciate if the rest of the world helped us to get back on track.
- tbastos 13y ago
  As a foreigner, I appreciate your sensibility. I'm constantly under the impression that most americans would be fine with the NSA surveillance programs if they didn't target americans. That viewpoint is exactly what earned America so many enemies along the years. America doesn't need better intel or military, it needs better international policies. What good is it to be the richest country on Earth if you have a sick/stressed society that is constantly under threat, and with increasingly fewer civil liberties? Today, I don't think I would want to live in the US... and if you'd asked me 15 years ago I would have jumped at the opportunity.
  - malandrew 13y ago
    Exactly. I myself have this secret fantasy that one day we'll realize that we'd buy 10x the security, by taking the 33 cents of every tax dollar we spend on defense and using it to help all the countries in the world that we want to like us. We can build a lot more goodwill by building nations than destroying them. If we're seen as the people that show up at your countries doorstep and improve your human condition until it's on par with most developed countries, then that would earn us a lot more security because we'd have popular global support. Which is going to be more impactful? 1) Don't mess with us or we will mess with you? or 2) If you mess with us, we'll show up and improve life for your own population, where they will clearly support kicking you out to let us in to help out. The former is the conclusion you come to if you view all the best possible outcome as the result of Pareto optimalities or the result of a Nash equilibrium. It's like "how to make friends and influence people" for nation states.
RankingMember 13y ago
It's been my opinion that we need to put our policies where our mouth so often is here (we're still calling ourselves a beacon of personal liberty and freedom, right?) and stop acting like the rest of the world is made up of nothing but potential enemy combatants. The tone of our relationship with the rest of the world is significantly marred when we don't show basic respect even for our allies (not that I think our enemies should necessarily be fair game for these kinds of tactics either - not going to "win hearts and minds" that way).
cinquemb 13y ago
Privacy, in general, to me, seems to only go as far as an individuals/groups ability/will to assert it "technically". In physical space, as you may have seen in the ACLU parody video of the NSA, people threw/swatted at the cameras and "santas" that were snooping (a "technical" solution, not an "theory" one [they did not try to reason with the santas to stop doing what they were doing before they resorted to the "technical" solution, from what we were led to believe]). Most people are not doing that in the realm of the internet, so to me the video was interesting because at the end, it's a call to action in basis of a "theory" that made no mention to the "technical" that could be at ones disposal. How can one use only reason with someone/organization/government who asserts their power over another through technicalities ignored by those who lack the ability/will to assert their privacy through the technicalities available and discussed many times over on places like HN from information accessible online?
danbruc 13y ago
It is really scary that some people need a 300 page report to realize that foreigners have privacy rights, too.
orblivion 13y ago
It's kindof funny, the presumption is that there's exactly one government in the world who is not allowed to spy on any given person, every other government is fair game.
- pg_is_a_butt 13y ago
  it's "kindof" funny how ignorant and hypocritical you are. the EU is a UNION of INDEPENDENT governments. they passed their own laws that make hosting data for ANY of their citizens on servers that are physically located in the US ILLEGAL. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive PG is a BUTT

111 points by wrongc0ntinent 13y ago

aet 13y ago

Also, peace on earth, pls.

girvo 13y ago

I'm a foreigner. And I'll be honest: I expect and assume the NSA (and any other country) will be spying on my traffic if they have access to it. If we assume (even though I disagree) that an NSA with capabilities like this is needed, then targeting me as a foreigner is... Well, sort of the point. Where the issue arises is that so much traffic goes through the US, a choice to use non US companies etc to avoid this becomes moot... So whenever I think about this, I end up back at square one and see the need for end to end encryption on everything. :( Edit: I'm in a Five Eyes country too, just FYI. Also, anyone ever get the feeling that the entire point of the internet is kind of... Incongruent with national borders and laws that live within them? I'm not arguing for anarchy or a new global order, truly I don't see a good way of reconciling the feeling of "square peg round hole" I get when I think about this stuff.

win_ini 13y ago
My gmail signature says "Privacy Notice: the NSA likely has a copy of this email". My own little bit of civil disobedience. Some people ask about it - and I explain that as Canadian living in the US - all my emails seem to fall under the umbrella of "ok to collect". I'm hoping this makes people think "hmmm, is there anything in this email I don't want to send?" And realize the true impact of surveillance state - changing what we think and communicate to others.

rayiner 13y ago

I'll echo Eric Posner's article on this issue: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/view_from_chicago/2013/11/the_nsa_should_keep_spying_on_foreign_leaders_and_citizens.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/view_from_ch.... There's a big difference between not spying on foreigners because the government is legally constrained from doing so, and not spying on foreigners because it's bad foreign policy. The former idea is ridiculous: we do not live under world government where sovereign nations are subject to international legal restrictions. The latter idea is eminently sensible.

JulianMorrison 13y ago
> we do not live under world government where sovereign nations are subject to international legal restrictions We ought to. The notion that nation-states are allowed to run rampage and be as anarchic as they please, internationally, is stupid.
- rayiner 13y ago
  The problem with world government, and international frameworks in general, is that people who don't think like you can nonetheless legally bind you. At least to the extent that you mix international frameworks with democracy. My family emigrated to the U.S. from Bangladesh. It's a place where you see women covered up in the name of Islam, etc, and its getting worse over the last 20 years, not better. I have absolutely zero desire to be part of a democratic community with people who believe these things, and I bet if you're honest with yourself neither do you. But that's what happens when you mix international legal norms with democracy. You oblige yourself to follow the votes of people who have totally different cultural values to yourself. And this isn't a one-way street either. I imagine most Europeans would prefer not to be part of a democratic community that included Americans and their notably more conservative approach to many issues.
  - Joeri 13y ago
    The variation of opinion across the U.S. is at least as big as the variation across the planet. Just watch Louis Theroux's documentaries to see the evidence of this. You have extremist thinkers in any country. That is why we have democracy and political parties, to find compromise through negotiation, and why we have constitutions and courts of law to uphold them, to ensure basic rights cannot be trampled with the shifting of the political winds. The scale at which you apply democracy and constitutional rights doesn't really matter, except that it is unfair to apply it unequally. Now, I know what you're thinking. Can you take iran and israel and make one country out of them? What a ridiculous idea, it would only end in bloodshed. Here's the thing that's ridiculous to me: that we tolerate it when countries deny people their human rights because it happens inside their borders. Team America, World Police, right? Well, despite being a European I'm all for that if it means we finally get rid of human rights violations. It's not ok to deny women their human rights, so Iranians must eventually comply with that or face consequences before a court of law. Similarly it's not ok for Israelis and Palestinians to deny each other their human rights, so eventually they must comply with that or face consequences before a court of law. The way I see it, the discussion is not about what needs to be done, only on when it will come about. Economically, we've already formed frameworks that span the globe, like the WTO and IMF, and we have somehow managed to bring everyone into a single unified economic theory, even the communists. Now we just need to do the same thing for the other half of what governments do and unify the social theory.

sentenza 13y ago

Some of the other commenters seem to underestimate the extreme shift, caused by the NSA scandal, in how the US is perceived in some parts of Europe (and I guess Brasil). NSA surveillance (and hacking!) is pevasive of all that is digital. They even directly attack private individuals in Europe, considering them as worthless pawns. (Don't believe me? Google "Belgacom Hack") To those of us living in countries that had to struggle to rid themselves of the surveillance state, this _feels_ like enemy action. So why should people over here perceive a country that has declared them fair game to its large security apparatus be anything other than an enemy? Do not underestimate the consequences of the NSA actions. The mistrust that is growing right now could undo important parts of the digital globalization.

arethuza 13y ago
I was talking to someone who works for a company that does cloud hosting of very high end business applications (i.e. specialized finance systems) and he said they were seeing a lot of European companies starting to look at moving their hosting from the US to the EU - largely due to the recent NSA revelations. I must admit that this rather surprised me - but I have no reason to doubt him.
- pg_is_a_butt 13y ago
  uh... i do lots of "very high end specialized finance systems" for the EU, and their laws specifically prohibit hosting servers in the US. even if the servers are located in EU, i'm not allowed to connect to them directly from the US to set them up, so i had to go over there once to set them up, and then later i just screen shared with an admin there (barcelona) and took over the keyboard and mouse on his computer to do updates. so either you're lying, your friend is lying, or they are breaking EU law.
- bobzibub 13y ago
  There are other costs outside of the US also: Given that the NSA is so aggressive (all pipes being suspect now) the changes politically demanded will: -lessen convenience of all software and increasing the costs for users to interact with it in terms of time and complexity. -building and deploying security solutions can be expensive especially to those products that do not lend themselves to security--more engineering increases costs. -increase in cpu cycles as we all increase key sizes and introduce encryption where once there was none, or limited for authentication only. Id bet this will be a small drag on the world economy and certainly a drag on the world software industry. It could be thought of as a world wide tax.

anoncowherd 13y ago

Don't worry about the "inequality", they've always been spying on US citizens too, and still are! In fact, US citizens are their priority, because they're the ones the US government needs to control and keep in check to maintain their power.

e28eta 13y ago

I've been looking/waiting for an article like this ever since news of the NSA spying was released (but haven't been looking particularly hard). All of what I've seen previously discussed whether the spying has been legal/appropriate to do to US Citizens, while I've always felt it has been a bad idea regardless of citizenship. I haven't really thought it through, but I sometimes wish that the international blowback does happen, and happens in a big way. I think the US government has betrayed the world's trust, and I would like to see repercussions. As a software engineer working in Silicon Valley for a company that sells software internationally, it would not be good for my industry. However, my country's morality compass seems to be broken, and I'd appreciate if the rest of the world helped us to get back on track.

tbastos 13y ago
As a foreigner, I appreciate your sensibility. I'm constantly under the impression that most americans would be fine with the NSA surveillance programs if they didn't target americans. That viewpoint is exactly what earned America so many enemies along the years. America doesn't need better intel or military, it needs better international policies. What good is it to be the richest country on Earth if you have a sick/stressed society that is constantly under threat, and with increasingly fewer civil liberties? Today, I don't think I would want to live in the US... and if you'd asked me 15 years ago I would have jumped at the opportunity.
- malandrew 13y ago
  Exactly. I myself have this secret fantasy that one day we'll realize that we'd buy 10x the security, by taking the 33 cents of every tax dollar we spend on defense and using it to help all the countries in the world that we want to like us. We can build a lot more goodwill by building nations than destroying them. If we're seen as the people that show up at your countries doorstep and improve your human condition until it's on par with most developed countries, then that would earn us a lot more security because we'd have popular global support. Which is going to be more impactful? 1) Don't mess with us or we will mess with you? or 2) If you mess with us, we'll show up and improve life for your own population, where they will clearly support kicking you out to let us in to help out. The former is the conclusion you come to if you view all the best possible outcome as the result of Pareto optimalities or the result of a Nash equilibrium. It's like "how to make friends and influence people" for nation states.

RankingMember 13y ago

It's been my opinion that we need to put our policies where our mouth so often is here (we're still calling ourselves a beacon of personal liberty and freedom, right?) and stop acting like the rest of the world is made up of nothing but potential enemy combatants. The tone of our relationship with the rest of the world is significantly marred when we don't show basic respect even for our allies (not that I think our enemies should necessarily be fair game for these kinds of tactics either - not going to "win hearts and minds" that way).

cinquemb 13y ago

Privacy, in general, to me, seems to only go as far as an individuals/groups ability/will to assert it "technically". In physical space, as you may have seen in the ACLU parody video of the NSA, people threw/swatted at the cameras and "santas" that were snooping (a "technical" solution, not an "theory" one [they did not try to reason with the santas to stop doing what they were doing before they resorted to the "technical" solution, from what we were led to believe]). Most people are not doing that in the realm of the internet, so to me the video was interesting because at the end, it's a call to action in basis of a "theory" that made no mention to the "technical" that could be at ones disposal. How can one use only reason with someone/organization/government who asserts their power over another through technicalities ignored by those who lack the ability/will to assert their privacy through the technicalities available and discussed many times over on places like HN from information accessible online?

danbruc 13y ago

It is really scary that some people need a 300 page report to realize that foreigners have privacy rights, too.

orblivion 13y ago

It's kindof funny, the presumption is that there's exactly one government in the world who is not allowed to spy on any given person, every other government is fair game.

pg_is_a_butt 13y ago
it's "kindof" funny how ignorant and hypocritical you are. the EU is a UNION of INDEPENDENT governments. they passed their own laws that make hosting data for ANY of their citizens on servers that are physically located in the US ILLEGAL. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive PG is a BUTT