To be honest it really should be part of the NSA remit to spy on as many world leaders as possible (friend or foe) I expect GCHQ & whatever the French equivalent is to be doing exactly the same.
I'd be very surprised if GCHQ weren't at least trying to spy on the US president and NSA weren't doing the same to the UK prime minister whenever possible. I'd guess security committee members would also be spied upon as well.
I don't know how far they would go though in terms of breaking and entering to plant bugs etc but they've only got to make look it's a hostile powers work to get away with it.
It's probably only the difficulty of the denials if they get caught that would affect the likelihood of five eyes members spying on each other.
Given the French supposedly bugged Concorde it's seems a bit rich of them to complain.
What I find disturbing is the disconnect between the mission statement of the NSA, i.e. counter terrorism and military threats, and what is actually done.
The Signals Intelligence mission collects, processes, and disseminates intelligence information from foreign signals for intelligence and counterintelligence purposes and to support military operations. This Agency also enables Network Warfare operations to defeat terrorists and their organizations at home and abroad, consistent with U.S. laws and the protection of privacy and civil liberties.
I mean how spying on your ally head of state is preventing "terrorism" or supporting "military operation". Do you believe that there is a terrorist cell in l'Elysée ?
This is disingenuous at best, but looks more like dishonest.
They then use the information to help protect our troops, support our allies, fight terrorism, combat international crime and narcotics, support diplomatic negotiations, and advance many other important national objectives.
Again the focus is on "threat", "crime", "combat" and at the end the very vague "important national objectives".
Don't you feel the strong cognitive dissonance between the missions that are put at the forefront and what it is really done ?
I would say it depends of the context. Negotiating a ceasefire in Ukraine and making sure the other party is not only trying to buy time sounds OK in my book. On the other trying to get the upper hand in a trade treaty is not so great. And the European case it is probably more of the later.
You have to take into account, that a trade deal is something your enter voluntarily between partners/allies in the hope it will be a win-win for both sides. If there is an information asymmetry, you don't negotiate as equal, but rather as dupe and knave.
Would you sit at a poker table if you knew the cards where marked ?
In regards of the revelation, even if there are a few years old, at the time of tense TIPP negotiation, it makes a bad impression.
National objective isn't vague at all. A national objective is an actual mandate by the president to the Sec. of Defense for some operation to occur. For example, a national objective would be "Degrade ISIS operations in Iraq." The Sec. would take this down the chain of the DoD through all the planning (which typically involves intelligence at this point) until finally seeing bombs dropping on ISIS in Iraq.
Notice your quote says "many other national objectives". Everything listed prior are national objectives set by the president.
Given the shenanigans that the French have caused within NATO over the years I'd suggest that it would be useful from a strategic perspective to know the views of the French President. Not saying right or wrong, just able to fit broadly into the mission statement.
To be honest it really should be part of the NSA remit to spy on as many world leaders as possible (friend or foe) I expect GCHQ & whatever the French equivalent is to be doing exactly the same.
This canard seems to be dragged out as a response to any abridgement of civil liberties (of course the FBI should have a agent in every environmental group! Of course Uber should be paying Lyft executives secretly for access to their trade secrets! Of course the NSA should listen in on every phone call! To do otherwise would be stupid and incompetent, and I don't want a stupid incompetent government/company/father.)
What happens when you spy on everyone is that when you get caught, your diplomacy breaks down all over the world and you can't get anything done without direct threats. Also, no one lets anyone connected with you get close to anything important, because you are untrustworthy i.e. when you say you're going to send weapons inspectors, Iraq says: don't send any Americans, they only send spies. A lot of people who studied at American universities and return home get imprisoned and/or executed.
Intelligence gathering is something you do because you want to gain leverage, not lose it. Instead, in the US, it's become another teat for huge incompetent contractors to suck the taxpayer dry.
This seems an odd article to express this sentiment on. Whether or not the canard is used in other contexts to whitewash civil liberties abuses, in this specific example, it is being used correctly.
If your spy agencies are not going to gather intelligence on foreign world leaders, who precisely should they be gathering intelligence on? If your answer is that there is no acceptable use of intelligence gathering facilities, that is fine, but that is a much more extreme belief than the one that says it is ok for the NSA to spy on the leaders of France.
When the US president invites allies to the white-house, I would assume there to be quite of an outcry if guests were found to plant bugs on phones and network switches. I would expect headlines to include "human lives are put at risk" and "we expect invited allies to behave according to national treaties" in all of the large news papers.
I would not expect to see a shrug and a "owell, thats what spying is for, right?".
I would not expect to see a shrug and a "owell, thats what spying is for, right?".
The French secret service is infamous for its espionage. They have even been accused of bugging hotel rooms and airline flights to gain classified US information.
And until Snowden, the collective reaction was indeed "meh." Well, Germany did call France the 'evil empire' of industrial espionage, but nobody cared. Apparently the US only ever confidentially complained when it became too overt.
So France screaming about US spying is rather like the pot calling the kettle black. It's done for political reasons, not because the French government really believes it's wrong.
I would. Last week there were lots of stories that indicated that elements within the Chinese government were responsible for the OPM break in. That is, a foreign government allegedly hacked the US governments computers.
The outrage was that the US let it happen, not that China tried it, because of course they are going to try that, because "thats what spying is for, right?"
Firstly, I wouldn't be surprised if things like this are quietly ignored for the sake of diplomacy.
Secondly, this fairness isn't the objective here, it's being ahead. The perfect situation, as far as any reasonable spy agency is concerned, is we can spy on others but others can't spy on us.
What you write may be true: spy agencies feel like they can spy on everyone else, but everyone else can't spy on their country. Or something.
But that position is illogical: according to USA laws NSA can spy on everyone else, according to UK laws, GCHQ can spy on everyone else, etc. And everyone points fingers at everyone else for "breaking the law". That position leads to immediate contradictions. Also, it's a "Well, they're right because they're OUR guys" sort of thing.
Once you take the "OUR guys are RIGHT and YOUR guys are WRONG" position, there's no limits, just insufficient imagination to justify anything weird, dangerous, unethical and in a larger sense, immoral.
Although I disagree about spying on your allies at this kind of level, I did find it more outrage-worthy that the NSA was spying on the ordinary population than that they were bugging politicians and officials.
With the Five Eyes agreement there's pretty much a statement that France is outside the proper list of US allies. Any foreign security agency worth its salt would view that as a statement of intent that those outside the group are likely to be spied on by those inside.
France has always had a divergent geopolitical strategy that sets it apart from the USA/UK alliance.
That's part and parcel of democracy. If you want to pretend that those politicians and officials are accountable to the people, then the people are a legitimate target for espionage, just like the king would be in a monarchy.
Spying on citizens part and parcel of democracy? In what definition of democracy?
If you want to pretend that those politicians and officials are accountable to the people, then the people are a legitimate target for espionage, just like the king would be in a monarchy.
First, if officials are accountable to the people, then the officials are legitimate target of espionage (or transparency). The people is the master, not the officials.
Also, following your logic, are people also a legitimate target to terrorist attacks? It is after all a democracy, and in that sense they are responsible for the actions of their government, right?
Or we could take the logical conclusion that what we have is far for a democracy...
In the definition that says the ultimate source of government power is the people. You seem to agree that this is a reasonable definition of democracy. This means that they are a legitimate target when it comes to espionage or terrorism, yes. If you don't like it, move to a dictatorship.
"Ultimate source" in parliamentary democracy just means that people vote (and once in several years).
They don't influence the government in its day to day operations, nor they have any special power or significance for the various policies as individuals (outside of their function as a voting majority).
So while this might make them a "legitimate" target for terrorism (in the sense: they voted for the government so they are ultimately responsible for its foreign policy etc) it doesn't make any sense at all regarding to espionage.
Of course it does. Although you did miss quite a bit, you at least realize that they vote in elections. You don't see the value in knowing and influencing election results?
Yeah, I totally agree that leaders of state must expect to be spied upon - much as they must expect media attention. What I'm less enthusiastic about is the spying on people who are unlikely to ever have any strategic significance.
I heard about such things decades ago and surprised anyone thinks it doesn't happen, even among friends. I am positive there are some spies sitting around a table somewhere saying to themselves, "Well, duh. And the sky is blue!"
Comments
To be honest it really should be part of the NSA remit to spy on as many world leaders as possible (friend or foe) I expect GCHQ & whatever the French equivalent is to be doing exactly the same.
I'd be very surprised if GCHQ weren't at least trying to spy on the US president and NSA weren't doing the same to the UK prime minister whenever possible. I'd guess security committee members would also be spied upon as well.
I don't know how far they would go though in terms of breaking and entering to plant bugs etc but they've only got to make look it's a hostile powers work to get away with it.
It's probably only the difficulty of the denials if they get caught that would affect the likelihood of five eyes members spying on each other.
Given the French supposedly bugged Concorde it's seems a bit rich of them to complain.
What I find disturbing is the disconnect between the mission statement of the NSA, i.e. counter terrorism and military threats, and what is actually done.
From https://www.nsa.gov/about/mission/index.shtml
I mean how spying on your ally head of state is preventing "terrorism" or supporting "military operation". Do you believe that there is a terrorist cell in l'Elysée ?
This is disingenuous at best, but looks more like dishonest.
Eh? It's right there in the mission statement:
"Intelligence purposes" i.e. knowing as much as possible about ,say, trade negotiations.
Read the following description of SIGINT : https://www.nsa.gov/sigint/faqs.shtml
Again the focus is on "threat", "crime", "combat" and at the end the very vague "important national objectives".
Don't you feel the strong cognitive dissonance between the missions that are put at the forefront and what it is really done ?
What about "support diplomatic negotiations"?
The NSA is pretty straightforward about spying on foreign governments it seems
I would say it depends of the context. Negotiating a ceasefire in Ukraine and making sure the other party is not only trying to buy time sounds OK in my book. On the other trying to get the upper hand in a trade treaty is not so great. And the European case it is probably more of the later.
What's wrong with that? Trying to get the best deal for your side is the entire point of a negotiation.
You have to take into account, that a trade deal is something your enter voluntarily between partners/allies in the hope it will be a win-win for both sides. If there is an information asymmetry, you don't negotiate as equal, but rather as dupe and knave.
Would you sit at a poker table if you knew the cards where marked ?
In regards of the revelation, even if there are a few years old, at the time of tense TIPP negotiation, it makes a bad impression.
If I knew the cards were marked and how
And I knew exactly how much or how little each of the other players knew about - the marking system - and the other players' knowledge of it
And I knew that I was the only one at the table with the power to punish any bad actors
And I knew that my family needed money I didn't have
Why on earth would I stay away?
National objective isn't vague at all. A national objective is an actual mandate by the president to the Sec. of Defense for some operation to occur. For example, a national objective would be "Degrade ISIS operations in Iraq." The Sec. would take this down the chain of the DoD through all the planning (which typically involves intelligence at this point) until finally seeing bombs dropping on ISIS in Iraq.
Notice your quote says "many other national objectives". Everything listed prior are national objectives set by the president.
Given the shenanigans that the French have caused within NATO over the years I'd suggest that it would be useful from a strategic perspective to know the views of the French President. Not saying right or wrong, just able to fit broadly into the mission statement.
This canard seems to be dragged out as a response to any abridgement of civil liberties (of course the FBI should have a agent in every environmental group! Of course Uber should be paying Lyft executives secretly for access to their trade secrets! Of course the NSA should listen in on every phone call! To do otherwise would be stupid and incompetent, and I don't want a stupid incompetent government/company/father.)
What happens when you spy on everyone is that when you get caught, your diplomacy breaks down all over the world and you can't get anything done without direct threats. Also, no one lets anyone connected with you get close to anything important, because you are untrustworthy i.e. when you say you're going to send weapons inspectors, Iraq says: don't send any Americans, they only send spies. A lot of people who studied at American universities and return home get imprisoned and/or executed.
Intelligence gathering is something you do because you want to gain leverage, not lose it. Instead, in the US, it's become another teat for huge incompetent contractors to suck the taxpayer dry.
This seems an odd article to express this sentiment on. Whether or not the canard is used in other contexts to whitewash civil liberties abuses, in this specific example, it is being used correctly.
If your spy agencies are not going to gather intelligence on foreign world leaders, who precisely should they be gathering intelligence on? If your answer is that there is no acceptable use of intelligence gathering facilities, that is fine, but that is a much more extreme belief than the one that says it is ok for the NSA to spy on the leaders of France.
When the US president invites allies to the white-house, I would assume there to be quite of an outcry if guests were found to plant bugs on phones and network switches. I would expect headlines to include "human lives are put at risk" and "we expect invited allies to behave according to national treaties" in all of the large news papers.
I would not expect to see a shrug and a "owell, thats what spying is for, right?".
The French secret service is infamous for its espionage. They have even been accused of bugging hotel rooms and airline flights to gain classified US information.
http://articles.philly.com/1992-10-24/news/25999062_1_aerosp... http://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/14/news/14iht-spy_.html
And until Snowden, the collective reaction was indeed "meh." Well, Germany did call France the 'evil empire' of industrial espionage, but nobody cared. Apparently the US only ever confidentially complained when it became too overt.
So France screaming about US spying is rather like the pot calling the kettle black. It's done for political reasons, not because the French government really believes it's wrong.
The French government may well believe it's wrong when it's done to them...
Your articles are 25 years old though.
Yes. Do you have any reason to think things have changed?
This is a game that's been played by every nation against every nation for six thousand years.
I would. Last week there were lots of stories that indicated that elements within the Chinese government were responsible for the OPM break in. That is, a foreign government allegedly hacked the US governments computers.
The outrage was that the US let it happen, not that China tried it, because of course they are going to try that, because "thats what spying is for, right?"
When reports of China hacking first came up in 2010 the White House objected to China strongly. I think they still do.
I find comments like this really strange.
Firstly, I wouldn't be surprised if things like this are quietly ignored for the sake of diplomacy.
Secondly, this fairness isn't the objective here, it's being ahead. The perfect situation, as far as any reasonable spy agency is concerned, is we can spy on others but others can't spy on us.
What you write may be true: spy agencies feel like they can spy on everyone else, but everyone else can't spy on their country. Or something.
But that position is illogical: according to USA laws NSA can spy on everyone else, according to UK laws, GCHQ can spy on everyone else, etc. And everyone points fingers at everyone else for "breaking the law". That position leads to immediate contradictions. Also, it's a "Well, they're right because they're OUR guys" sort of thing.
Once you take the "OUR guys are RIGHT and YOUR guys are WRONG" position, there's no limits, just insufficient imagination to justify anything weird, dangerous, unethical and in a larger sense, immoral.
Although I disagree about spying on your allies at this kind of level, I did find it more outrage-worthy that the NSA was spying on the ordinary population than that they were bugging politicians and officials.
With the Five Eyes agreement there's pretty much a statement that France is outside the proper list of US allies. Any foreign security agency worth its salt would view that as a statement of intent that those outside the group are likely to be spied on by those inside.
France has always had a divergent geopolitical strategy that sets it apart from the USA/UK alliance.
That's part and parcel of democracy. If you want to pretend that those politicians and officials are accountable to the people, then the people are a legitimate target for espionage, just like the king would be in a monarchy.
Spying on citizens part and parcel of democracy? In what definition of democracy?
First, if officials are accountable to the people, then the officials are legitimate target of espionage (or transparency). The people is the master, not the officials.
Also, following your logic, are people also a legitimate target to terrorist attacks? It is after all a democracy, and in that sense they are responsible for the actions of their government, right?
Or we could take the logical conclusion that what we have is far for a democracy...
In the definition that says the ultimate source of government power is the people. You seem to agree that this is a reasonable definition of democracy. This means that they are a legitimate target when it comes to espionage or terrorism, yes. If you don't like it, move to a dictatorship.
"Ultimate source" in parliamentary democracy just means that people vote (and once in several years).
They don't influence the government in its day to day operations, nor they have any special power or significance for the various policies as individuals (outside of their function as a voting majority).
So while this might make them a "legitimate" target for terrorism (in the sense: they voted for the government so they are ultimately responsible for its foreign policy etc) it doesn't make any sense at all regarding to espionage.
Of course it does. Although you did miss quite a bit, you at least realize that they vote in elections. You don't see the value in knowing and influencing election results?
Yeah, I totally agree that leaders of state must expect to be spied upon - much as they must expect media attention. What I'm less enthusiastic about is the spying on people who are unlikely to ever have any strategic significance.
That's something I don't get. Why should intelligence agencies be expected/allowed to spy on allies and friendly nations?
What does it tell you about that "friendship"?
Ever play the game Diplomacy? Friendship means jack shit.
Yeah, okay, foreign policy is not a board game.
You're right. Board games have rules.
Thanks for downvoting for disagreeing. But that's not it's supposed to work on HN.
You must have a sad life when friendship means nothing. But each to their own.
You cannot equate friendship between individual humans and "friendship" between nation-states. They are very different concepts.
I heard about such things decades ago and surprised anyone thinks it doesn't happen, even among friends. I am positive there are some spies sitting around a table somewhere saying to themselves, "Well, duh. And the sky is blue!"