

US surveillance revelations deepen European fears - youngerdryas
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/07/europe-surveillance-prism-idUSL5N0EJ31S20130607

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flexie
Whereas we in the EU have our own dubious surveillance programmes, at least
they are made by governments we can overthrow ourselves.

Also, European governments mostly grant us basic human rights, have no secret
overseas prisons, no death penalty for "treason", no decade long imprisonments
for whistle blowing or hacking, no secret military tribunals, no recent record
of torture, almost no drones, small military, tiny intelligence budgets etc.

~~~
philwelch
It's interesting. There are few European countries where I can unconditionally
refuse to speak to police or refuse them to search my home or person without a
warrant. We don't have CCTV cameras like they do in the UK. And when it comes
to being able to overthrow your government yourselves, much of Europe has the
same sham democracy we do. (Berlusconi? Seriously? Twice?) We have guns, but
the parts of Western Europe who really wanted to overthrow their governments
within recent history were able to get all the guns and explosives they wanted
too. So it's hard to really say one is any better than the other.

~~~
flexie
The European Court of Human Rights has established that the right to remain
silent under police questioning and the privilege against self-incrimination
applies.

All over Europe elections are held at least every 4th or 5th year and
governments are regularly overthrown, in Italy more often than anywhere else,
I think.

~~~
philwelch
> The European Court of Human Rights has established that the right to remain
> silent under police questioning and the privilege against self-incrimination
> applies.

Interesting. But the details of that certainly differ from country to country,
at least judging from the reaction to James Duane's "Don't Talk To Police"
video. For instance, in the UK, if you refuse to answer police questions,
statements you make in favor of your innocence can be thrown out because you
didn't mention them to the police under questioning. So the "right to remain
silent under police questioning" is much weaker in the UK.

> All over Europe elections are held at least every 4th or 5th year and
> governments are regularly overthrown

We have elections every _other_ year, so I'm curious why that's considered a
point of difference between Europe and the US. The issue is whether the
electoral system can effect real change or whether it's fixed by the rich and
powerful, e.g. by owning a large chunk of the country's media and continuing
to run those and other private businesses while serving as Prime Minister.

~~~
gsnedders
To make my usual point: the UK does not have a singular legal system; England
and Wales has a separate legal system to Scotland, which is itself separate to
the legal system in Scotland. People frequently claim the English and Welsh
legal system is the "UK legal system".

For example, when it comes to police questioning, until two years ago, there
was no requirement to provide a lawyer under Scots law (though there were
various other safeguards, which Google can likely tell you better than I!).

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lazyjones
The EU commission is a bunch of hypocrites. I am an European and I am appalled
by the lack of integrity of our politicians: they hand over data on flights,
credit cards, SWIFT transactions to other countries and keep trying to pass
ACTA in its various forms despite strong opposition of the EU population, they
created their own mass-surveillance laws (active in many european countries)
and then they pretend to be outraged at the mass-surveillance of the US they
themselves have helped facilitate in its full breadth. Cretins!

~~~
doe88
Indeed! I think the only reason Britain or France still don't have the same
mass-surveillance systems in place is their lack of budgets. Otherwise I'm
sure we wouldn't be better protected than the americans in the US. Although,
the irony being that certainly the US knows more on us (europeans) than our
own countries.

~~~
omd
We lack the budget because that's the government we voted for. And the reason
we don't spend a third of our budget on defense is not because we can't but
because we don't want to.

I'm glad we don't have a mass-surveillance system and I would like to keep it
that way. I don't get this attitude of "we're no better so who cares". What
the US government does in the US is their business and what ours does here is
our business, but when a foreign government starts spying on me that pisses me
off. I wonder what your reaction would be if it was China reading your emails.

~~~
AlexeiSadeski
Less than a fifth of US public budget is spent on defense...

~~~
notimetorelax
It's a lot, no?

~~~
mpyne
By GDP it's really not, no (about 4.7% for _much_ more ability than any other
nation). It's a lot in absolute terms, but so is the American economy.

It _is_ higher as a proportion of GDP than many of our NATO allies, but then
again that's actually one of our complaints as Americans... ;)

~~~
summerdown2
It really is a lot in global terms. E.g.:

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/timeline/7971d5fa4...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/timeline/7971d5fa4e474fa846811114bcfb374f.png)

And the difficulty in spending this much comes in two ways:

a) The more important your hammer becomes, the more everything looks like a
nail. The US has frequently undertaken a military response for areas where
other countries might use diplomacy.

b) The military, plus contractors, plus jobs that depend on the military, plus
PR and lobbying firms, all tend to distort politics in favour of increasing
military importance.

Don't get me wrong: the UK and EU in general owes a lot to US military power
over the years and should thank the US for a lot of our freedoms. But there is
a flip side, and I think it should be recognised that such a large amount of
spending does distort things.

~~~
AlexeiSadeski
The US spends 2.5x as much on the military as does Poland, as a % of GDP.

It's a lot, but not exactly extraordinary.

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BjoernKW
While I appreciate this statement I doubt that Germany and the EU is
fundamentally different from the US in that matter.

Sure, in Germany recently we've been quite successful in fending off planned
legislation that would've allowed massive privacy intrusions but in general
the political establishment over here isn't exactly a champion of civil
liberties either.

Besides, I'm certain both German and EU administrative bodies closely
cooperate with the US on intelligence matters and would more than gladly
accept sharing those findings.

~~~
Ihmahr
Yes, they closely cooperate. But EU agencies (except for UK) don't have a
record of torture, abduction and overly use of secrecy. Comparing the budgets
of the various secret services should be informative. US agencies are WAY
bigger and I think much too big. UK is the exception - being in line with US.

~~~
ims
Well that's a facile statement, since the EU is only 20 years old. Individual
countries in Europe absolutely do have a record of torture, abduction, and
secrecy in varying degrees. Are you completely forgetting the 20th century?

~~~
dnautics
didn't several EU countries (I'm thinking poland) aid the US in secret
detention facilities?

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Torn
> Europe, which lacks internet giants of its own, has long yearned to contain
> the power of the U.S. titans that dominate the Web,

Rubbish. The EU has quite strong notions of privacy and personal freedom,
which the US doesn't have. It's not about 'containing' US internet companies
it's about protecting the rights of EU citizens and fighting against the
societal harms that come with the erosion of privacy.

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danmaz74
"Statements from the U.S. government that the monitoring was not aimed at U.S.
citizens but only against persons outside the United States do not reassure me
at all." I couldn't agree more. It's no fun when they state in such a clear
way that we're second-class users, whose rights aren't so important after all.

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kriro
Germany already exports a lot of data to the US. That includes banking data,
flight plans and so forth. So that fear is mostly fake.

Hopefully the current developments provide a small chance of revoking those
laws but I highly doubt it.

I agree on the cloud stuff though. Some companies even use it in advertising
(your data stays here and is covered by our data protection laws)

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malandrew
I think the biggest worry I would have if I were in Europe is the same worry I
would have as an Amazon Marketplace Seller. An Amazon marketplace seller is
essentially sharing all their sales performance data with Amazon. This pretty
much guarantees that the best way to make money is to see lots of low volume
items. Anything that sells in any considerable quantity will not go unnoticed
by Amazon and they will start carrying the product themselves.

Anyone in the EU (or any other country) that frequently discusses valuable
information via any US service is vulnerable to exploitation. This includes
politicians, beaurocrats with gatekeeper positions, banks and other financial
services firms, etc. all have information that in the hands of the right
person in the US government can be used against them, their firm or their
country.

What if the US government deems it appropriate to watch what people in a
certain country is saying about the US dollar? That information can be used to
manipulate currency markets in favor of the US and we'd be none the wiser.

Every single congressional subcommittee dealing with any foreign affair has an
interest in asking the NSA to find out information on and private
communication of their counterparts in other countries.

If you want to exercise soft control over all other countries, what better way
than to get important people in all those other countries to centralize much
of their communications via US Cloud services that the NSA can conveniently
eavesdrop on. You get instant access to the words any thoughts of any person
you may interact with geopolitically.

I think the worst part is that anyemember of congress could already be using
illegitimately gained data and be none the wiser. At the end of the day they
make an innocent request like "Get me all the information you have on XXX so I
can make an informed decision." Next thing you know, this request is passed
along like a game of telephone until a report is drafted up. Nothing stops
those requests from making it to the NSA, where a rank an file employee deems
it appropriate to spy on the personal communications of foreign nationals
because they believe that it is in the best interest of the United States and
its position in the World. That data is intercepted and distilled into a
report and now that member of congress is operating with insider information,
ill-gotten via PRISM, and he is none the wiser and can go on with his life
thinking that its only being used for fighting terrorism.

~~~
guard-of-terra
"If you want to exercise soft control over all other countries, what better
way than to get important people in all those other countries to centralize
much of their communications via US Cloud services that the NSA can
conveniently eavesdrop on."

They actually did exactly that:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_wiretapping_case_2004%E2%...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_wiretapping_case_2004%E2%80%932005)

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rb2k_
He's not the German Justice Minister.

He's "the justice minister for the German state of Hesse".

~~~
pgeorgi
While Mr. Hahn isn't directly involved in last week's Blockupy incidents in
Frankfurt, one of his colleagues (the state's Minister of Interior) is and
certainly benefits if public outrage is targetted on someone else for a while.

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transfire
"designed to facilitate the acquisition of foreign intelligence information
concerning"

Assuredly the U.K. and Israel say the same thing to their people.

Of course, never mind that all three countries swap information. Total
surveillance is easily achieved. And it's all perfectly legal.

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eaxbin
On the 14th of September 2007, Denmark initiated our Anti-Terroism
Surveillance act, wherein ALL phonecalls, texts & internet traffic is saved
for at least 2 years.

Welcome to Denmark.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Have you got many terrorists in Denmark?

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lambtron
I wonder how China is thinking as it actively pushes its own web titans and
forbids the entrance of Facebook and Google and the like within its national
borders.

~~~
skrebbel
Makes the Huawei boycott feel a bit... special, too, don't you think?

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youngerdryas
The title was "German State Justice Minister Calls for Boycott of US
companies".

I think the only way to roll this back, if it even can be rolled back, is to
attack from the states using state power. If CA, NY, TX, UT, VT, every state,
starts making their own privacy laws to hamstring the Feds they may have to
change their tune for practicality.

~~~
smhinsey
I'm not sure that the states have any power here. If there's a federal law
legalizing it, it doesn't matter what the state laws are. It's basically the
reverse of the medical/legal marijuana scenario.

~~~
pessimizer
It seems to be working there, though. Also for gay marriage which has become
an inevitability.

~~~
mpyne
Marriage as a concept has always been left to the states.

The NSA is by statute international in scope (they are defined as signals
intelligence pertaining to _foreign_ nations), and _that_ has always been left
to the Federal government exclusively. The individual states don't even have a
dream here.

