Both are unethical, but there is a difference between spying (sitting with some binoculars by a window, or snooping around inside the building) and destructive actions (blowing up the entrance with a constant stream of TNT so no one else can get in). US does the former, China does both.
We've been hearing propaganda for ages about China & Russia doing evil things in the cyberspace and USA promoting freedoms and such but the NSA revelations among other things have shown that USA is just as guilty of all the spying, attacks, weakening of hardware and software even if it hurts american companies, economic espionage (which was also a difference people here used to make with China and was proven false), etc.
And I'm not even touching Stuxnet and Flame.
> The US generally does not engage in destructive actions with the intent of restricting the rights of their own citizens... just other country's citizens. China does both. Both are very bad, but I think the US still has a slight moral highground here.
If it does. It's not much higher. You're completely restricted in your rights to do anything that the government finds a matter of "national security". Even if it's not related to any official entity [1]
It's time we stop thinking about Us vs Them and who is winning or has a moral high-ground and start thinking in terms of citizens of the world united against injustice.
Opposing attacks like the Chinese against GitHub and the surveillance, propaganda and violence of all the other big powers.
Feeling good about "our side" being slightly better (Subjective and irrational) won't change the fact that it's still unacceptable.
I do pretty much agree with all your points. The revelation that NSA was engaged in economic spying definitely brought their moral highground way down to earth, even if the nature of the spying was somewhat more geopolitical than what China was doing (going after national energy companies, in NSA's case). But a few caveats:
>You're completely restricted in your rights to do anything that the government finds a matter of "national security". Even if it's not related to any official entity [1]
There are very few countries where this is not the case, even supposed extremely liberal countries like the Nordic ones. State secrets and national security are always going to be a monolith hanging over us for centuries. What needs to improve is the internal regulations and auditing behind these processes, to ensure strict adhere to public (not classified) laws and regulations.
I am not nationalistic or even patriotic in the least. I don't like a lot of what the US government and intelligence community does. However, I do see it as the lesser evil when you compare other superpowers like Russia and China.
They do, but usually those actions are done against "belligerent" entities.
And though it's certainly not a great defense, the router bricking was unintentional.
The US generally does not engage in destructive actions with the intent of restricting the rights of their own citizens... just other country's citizens. China does both. Both are very bad, but I think the US still has a slight moral highground here.
