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Could you explain to us why the US government is partaking in exact same tactics that they tried to drag the Chinese through the mud with? Hypocrisy seems to b

Could you explain to us why the US government is partaking in exact same tactics that they tried to drag the Chinese through the mud with? Hypocrisy seems to be the name of the game here: spying on attorney-client communications, pwning sysadmins to get access to infrastructure and rifling through trade secrets of companies. The last two of which the U.S. has put on their outrage face and publically shamed the Chinese for doing. Regardless, the Snowden cache was bulk, and was given to Greenwald, Poitras, and Gellman. Snowden isn't giving marching orders in the background, he left it up to journalists to decide what gets published. While they probably still collaborate, Poitras is in Berlin and is most likely one of the primary journalists behind this story and not Greenwald.

austinz 13y ago
It's realpolitik: doing and saying anything and everything to get an advantage over a perceived opponent or rival. This includes intentionally making misleading statements and convincing people you care about moral standards when you don't. Before Snowden changed things, it was readily apparent that everyone was ready to believe the US and nobody was ready to believe China. So the accusations were a rational thing to do. The US isn't the only country that does this, obviously, and people are divided over whether or not it is the 'right' way to conduct international relations.
- EthanHeilman 13y ago
  > This includes intentionally making misleading statements and convincing people you care about moral standards when you don't. Another possible is that several groups within the US government aren't on the same page. Elements of the State Dept might work to end torture in S. America, while the CIA secretly trains S. American governments in torture. This sort of, hack everyone/steal everything isn't in the long term interests of the US government because the US has the most to lose in terms of IP/infrastructure, but engaging in this damaging behavior may allow some agencies to "get the job done" in the short term. Makes sense that groups tasked with grand-strategy would oppose this behavior, whereas groups tasked with short-term results would ignore the long game. A predictable result of a failure of oversight (left hand plays against the strategy of the right hand).
csandreasen 13y ago
It's not the same tactics. The NSA is being accused in this article of hacking Huawei and stealing their source code in order to develop better exploits for Huawei equipment. Huawei was accused of: 1) using stolen Cisco source code to gain a competitive market advantage by not having to spend money on R&D. So far, no one has shown evidence that the US government has given any stolen Huawei code to private companies. 2) Huawei was owned by people with close ties to the Chinese government and military. Members of Congress raised concern that if they were allowed to provide equipment for large portions of the US telecommunications infrastructure, it would give ample opportunity for the Chinese intelligence services/ military to put backdoors in.

austinz 13y ago

It's realpolitik: doing and saying anything and everything to get an advantage over a perceived opponent or rival. This includes intentionally making misleading statements and convincing people you care about moral standards when you don't. Before Snowden changed things, it was readily apparent that everyone was ready to believe the US and nobody was ready to believe China. So the accusations were a rational thing to do. The US isn't the only country that does this, obviously, and people are divided over whether or not it is the 'right' way to conduct international relations.

EthanHeilman 13y ago
> This includes intentionally making misleading statements and convincing people you care about moral standards when you don't. Another possible is that several groups within the US government aren't on the same page. Elements of the State Dept might work to end torture in S. America, while the CIA secretly trains S. American governments in torture. This sort of, hack everyone/steal everything isn't in the long term interests of the US government because the US has the most to lose in terms of IP/infrastructure, but engaging in this damaging behavior may allow some agencies to "get the job done" in the short term. Makes sense that groups tasked with grand-strategy would oppose this behavior, whereas groups tasked with short-term results would ignore the long game. A predictable result of a failure of oversight (left hand plays against the strategy of the right hand).

csandreasen 13y ago

It's not the same tactics. The NSA is being accused in this article of hacking Huawei and stealing their source code in order to develop better exploits for Huawei equipment. Huawei was accused of: 1) using stolen Cisco source code to gain a competitive market advantage by not having to spend money on R&D. So far, no one has shown evidence that the US government has given any stolen Huawei code to private companies. 2) Huawei was owned by people with close ties to the Chinese government and military. Members of Congress raised concern that if they were allowed to provide equipment for large portions of the US telecommunications infrastructure, it would give ample opportunity for the Chinese intelligence services/ military to put backdoors in.