>When GCHQ does supply the US with valuable intelligence, the agency boasts about it. In one review, GCHQ boasted that it had supplied "unique contributions" to the NSA during its investigation of the American citizen responsible for an attempted car bomb attack in Times Square, New York City, in 2010.
>No other detail is provided – but it raises the possibility that GCHQ might have been spying on an American living in the US. The NSA is prohibited from doing this by US law.
I'd say that's more than a possibility. That's a reasonable inference. And there's nothing that any of the citizens of our respective western democracies can do about it. Our own governments aren't representing our interests. We can't flee to other governments because they're the ones doing our own government's dirty work. It's corruption all the way down to protect us from a nebulous threat, even though the panopticon presents a far more pervasive and persistent threat than any terrorist could ever dream of, and whose motivations are typically a response to our own foreign policies to begin with. It's a nasty positive feedback loop that I want no part in, but have no substantive say in regardless.
>When GCHQ does supply the US with valuable intelligence, the agency boasts about it. In one review, GCHQ boasted that it had supplied "unique contributions" to the NSA during its investigation of the American citizen responsible for an attempted car bomb attack in Times Square, New York City, in 2010.
>No other detail is provided – but it raises the possibility that GCHQ might have been spying on an American living in the US. The NSA is prohibited from doing this by US law.
I'd say that's more than a possibility. That's a reasonable inference. And there's nothing that any of the citizens of our respective western democracies can do about it. Our own governments aren't representing our interests. We can't flee to other governments because they're the ones doing our own government's dirty work. It's corruption all the way down to protect us from a nebulous threat, even though the panopticon presents a far more pervasive and persistent threat than any terrorist could ever dream of, and whose motivations are typically a response to our own foreign policies to begin with. It's a nasty positive feedback loop that I want no part in, but have no substantive say in regardless.