
Fine Line Seen in U.S. Spying on Companies - petethomas
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/21/business/us-snooping-on-companies-cited-by-china.html
======
sharpneli
"The N.S.A. says it observes American law around the globe, but admits that
local laws are no obstacle to its operations."

As an non American this annoys me immensely. US law basically states that non
citizens have no right to privacy nor fair trials whatsoever (A foreiginer is
not a person as defined in the constitution, this was the justification for
why those in Guantanamo did not get a fair trial). So N.S.A basically admits
that it's basically treating everyone else as fair game.

What can we, those not from the US, do to fight this? Naturally we cannot
affect this by voting so how can we get Americans to change things? Add "Only
for non US use" to any OpenSource projects we release?

But on a more serious note. Would you think it would be totally ok if other
countries take similar stance towards US companies and persons? Perhaps most
importantly for Americans all of this can potentially weaken the US
negotiation position in copyright enforcement, and for a country that depends
extremely heavily on IP it could be disastrous.

~~~
madaxe_again
As a non-American you are fundamentally unimportant to America, and are fair
game for whatever they see fit. If they want your communications, your wealth,
your life, they will have it. Wiretaps, asset freezes, drone-strikes.

The only thing that non-Americans can try to do is not engage with American
businesses, but this doesn't really work either, as from the jingoistic
perspective taken by US leadership and media this would be the "unfree world"
"ganging up" because "they hate our freedom", and would only lead to yet more
of the same, deeper isolation, and the vicious cycle continues.

It's very much worth noting that this is _not_ a uniquely American phenomenon.
The Chinese are at it, the Brits are at it in league with the Americans and
the rest of their gang, and you can be sure anyone else with a capability _is
using it_.

The same pattern applies elsewhere, and any external effort to apply pressure
is propagandised into an attack, justifying the further reduction of liberties
and increase of surveillance activities.

So what to do? The only thing I can perceive is the amputation of the power
wielded by our senile and demented states by simply rendering them irrelevant
through citizen-led governance. This is already happening, slowly, and the
collapse of less entrenched governments which is ongoing all over the planet
is reflective of exactly what happens when the populace just stop believing in
the elite's power, and instead their own. The wheel turns, and gathers
momentum.

~~~
aasarava
Curious: what are some examples of citizen-led governance beginning to render
states irrelevant? Likewise, where are you seeing a collapse of less
entrenched governments all over the planet?

------
zipfle
I wonder if there's an analog to "parallel construction" that uses
intelligence contractors and competitive intelligence firms to move NSA data
to the private sector.

~~~
MatthiasP
It is not hard to imagine a company like Microsoft wanting something in
exchange for all the zero day exploits they report to the NSA in advance.

~~~
walls
Microsoft reports these zero days to every company with a MAPP subscription.

~~~
dmix
"NSA gets early access to zero-day data from Microsoft"

[http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/06/nsa-gets-early-
acces...](http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/06/nsa-gets-early-access-to-
zero-day-data-from-microsoft-others/)

~~~
walls
Yes, this is called MAPP. Every large security company gets them, as well.

[http://technet.microsoft.com/en-
US/security/dn467918](http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/security/dn467918)

------
puppetmaster3
You can see how NSA is affecting our jobs, as in they reduce exports due to
'add ons'.

That is so patriotic of them. /s

~~~
dan_bk
And I fail to see how that damage can ever be undone. This sort of trust is
lost only once.

~~~
mythealias
Time fixes everything. We have a short term memory. But what I feel the
problem here is that there is no government will to stop what is being done.
Which means that such acts will keep repeating. They are being sold as
securing national interests which is a bit vague term in itself.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
This is a political-level problem, not an NSA-level one.

They're spies. Of course they're going to want to spy on everything.

What we're missing is adult supervision that knows enough that some barriers
should not be crossed. Congress (the Senate especially) is responsible for
this mess. They created it, and they're allowing it to continue.)

~~~
pagekicker
good point Daniel B.

