Really? An American intelligence agency read personal e-mails from Latin American presidents to fight terrorist threats?
I don't think anybody is exactly shocked by the news leaked by Snowden and Greenwald, just angry at the level of mishandling and abuse of privileged information that appears to be going on (for economical advantage, for example). Just because it's not surprising or because people suspect other countries are doing it as well, doesn't make it OK.
If the roles were reversed and they learned a Latin American security agency was reading Obama's e-mails, things would get pretty ugly.
This may surprise you, but the purpose of the National Security Agency isn't to fight terrorist threats.This article documents the NSA doing their job.
It would get ugly in that, heads would roll because Latin American security agencies had the capability to do that, sure. Preventing that is ALSO the NSA's job.
I mentioned terrorism because it seems to be the go to reason given to/by Americans when things like this come up (weren't the first official responses to this whole NSA saga all about how it was necessary for military security and terrorism prevention?).
Considering even the NSA admitted to employees abusing their power and Obama talked about possible reforms, I don't think it sounds all that easy to defend this as simply NSA's job. Just yesterday in Sweden Obama said they "are not going around snooping at people’s emails or listening to their phone calls" and that "what we try to do is to target very specifically areas of concern”... I mean, the presidents of Mexico and Brazil? Serious areas of concern? Didn't know we were that dangerous, especially in areas such as energy, trade and economic plans :-p!
But I guess we can all agree that nothing about this is exactly surprising.
Agency dedicated to intercepting and interpreting signals intelligence with a multi-billion dollar budget actually is intercepting and interpreting signals intelligence.
If this is true, the NSA is one of the few Federal agencies that is actually doing what it is supposed to do. We should get these guys over to DOJ, DOE, HUD, HHS and ED.
Oh I don't disagree. The whole "AMERICA IS THE GREATEST AND TEH SHINIEST!" was worn out an stupid way back even in the 400s, if not earlier.
But again - how many other nations do it too>? AFAIK, cuntries are perfectly happy to smile and tell you how awesome they are while they spy on everyone let their nuclear reactors quietly go kaboom / have people jumping out of buildings to escape the awful labor conditions etc.
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I don't think anybody is exactly shocked by the news leaked by Snowden and Greenwald, just angry at the level of mishandling and abuse of privileged information that appears to be going on (for economical advantage, for example). Just because it's not surprising or because people suspect other countries are doing it as well, doesn't make it OK.
If the roles were reversed and they learned a Latin American security agency was reading Obama's e-mails, things would get pretty ugly.
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It would get ugly in that, heads would roll because Latin American security agencies had the capability to do that, sure. Preventing that is ALSO the NSA's job.
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Considering even the NSA admitted to employees abusing their power and Obama talked about possible reforms, I don't think it sounds all that easy to defend this as simply NSA's job. Just yesterday in Sweden Obama said they "are not going around snooping at people’s emails or listening to their phone calls" and that "what we try to do is to target very specifically areas of concern”... I mean, the presidents of Mexico and Brazil? Serious areas of concern? Didn't know we were that dangerous, especially in areas such as energy, trade and economic plans :-p!
But I guess we can all agree that nothing about this is exactly surprising.
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If this is true, the NSA is one of the few Federal agencies that is actually doing what it is supposed to do. We should get these guys over to DOJ, DOE, HUD, HHS and ED.
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Who really thinks the US government is entirely on the up and up and doesn't do covert, questionable things to know everything about everything?
And who really thinks any other country isn't trying to do the same thing?
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But again - how many other nations do it too>? AFAIK, cuntries are perfectly happy to smile and tell you how awesome they are while they spy on everyone let their nuclear reactors quietly go kaboom / have people jumping out of buildings to escape the awful labor conditions etc.
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