Merka is bugging Yerup!

[Svartalf]

Bugging? Buggering, more like...

[MiM]

Given that this information has come out into the public domain, how would you expect Germany and France to react?
Also interesting to note that Germany is spending $100 million on its own Internet monitoring programme. The German foreign intelligence service has more than 6000 employees, I doubt they are just twiddling their thumbs.

If they were doing it themselves, I would expect them not to make a tremendous fuss about it publicly, because they're liable to be found out and look like like lying hypocrites. Unless, of course, the Yerpeeins are just so much better at covert surveillance that there just is no reasonable chance of them being found out....

Kind of like the USA screaming bloody murder about Chinese internet attacks

[Coito ergo sum]

Given that this information has come out into the public domain, how would you expect Germany and France to react?
Also interesting to note that Germany is spending $100 million on its own Internet monitoring programme. The German foreign intelligence service has more than 6000 employees, I doubt they are just twiddling their thumbs.

If they were doing it themselves, I would expect them not to make a tremendous fuss about it publicly, because they're liable to be found out and look like like lying hypocrites. Unless, of course, the Yerpeeins are just so much better at covert surveillance that there just is no reasonable chance of them being found out....

Kind of like the USA screaming bloody murder about Chinese internet attacks

Yes, kind of, and look how the Administration looks like a giant, lying, fuckwitted jackass for bitching about what the Administration was itself doing with wild abandon...

[MiM]

With the difference, that the US an Europe are supposed to be close allies and friends, and there are certain things you don't do to friends, even though it's at least partly ok to do it to others. Or you might loose your friends.

[Animavore]

Or you might loose your friends.

[Coito ergo sum]

With the difference, that the US an Europe are supposed to be close allies and friends, and there are certain things you don't do to friends, even though it's at least partly ok to do it to others. Or you might loose your friends.

Well, I think the idea is that it's illegal no matter what, but we generally don't give a shit as much when we do it to our enemies and it's up to our enemies to combat spying efforts. For example, when the US was caught spying on the Soviet Union by flying a U2 plane in their airspace, they prosecuted the spy and it was an international incident because the US had violated international law and Soviet sovereignty in doing so. We just did that kind of shit anyway, because all is fair in love and war. However, it wasn't that such surveillance was somehow right or legal. It's that we're in a life and death struggle and you do what you have to do to win and to survive. That consideration generally isn't applicable when you're dealing with you're allies, who tend to take umbrage to being treated like enemies.

[Clinton Huxley]

I read a piece by a German industrialist moaning that the worst for industrial espionage were.......the French. It's all just part of the game.

[JimC]

The world needs more transparency. Everybody should be bugging everybody else! No secrets!

[Cormac]

Jesus! We do have a secret service

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G2_%28Repu ... Ireland%29

Jesus Ani. What planet are you on? Of course we do. And they descend directly from Michael Collins' organisation.

Who do you think was leading our anti-dissident initiatives?

[pErvinalia]

http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/01/world/eur ... index.html

The European Commission will sweep its office for electronic listening devices and other security breaches following revelations of alleged U.S. surveillance programs targeting European leaders, a commission spokeswoman said Monday.
They've also put out some pointed questions for their U.S. allies to answer about the allegations, spokeswoman Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen said Monday.
READ: Europe furious, 'shocked' by report of U.S. spying
"The EU is now expecting to hear from the U.S. authorities," she said. "And let me state clearly, that clarity and transparency is what we expect from our partners and allies, and this is what we expect from the United States."
The planned security sweep comes amid building outrage in Europe over allegations that the National Security Agency had bugged EU offices in Washington and New York and conducted an "electronic eavesdropping operation" that tapped into an EU building in Brussels, Belgium.

For folks who are full of false outrage, they're putting themselves out on a limb.... either they're going to find bugs from many different countries hidden all over the place, or they're going to cover up the non-Merkin ones....

I actually chuckle to myself whenever these types of revelations, and subsequent bouts of faux-outrage, come out. The US does it any time China is busted spying on them. Yurup does it. Australia has recently done it. They made their own fucking beds, and they can fucking lie in them without being whiny little tits. Fucking elitist authoritarian wankers. Down with them all! (Hello NSA.. )

[pErvinalia]

Given that this information has come out into the public domain, how would you expect Germany and France to react?
Also interesting to note that Germany is spending $100 million on its own Internet monitoring programme. The German foreign intelligence service has more than 6000 employees, I doubt they are just twiddling their thumbs.

If they were doing it themselves, I would expect them not to make a tremendous fuss about it publicly, because they're liable to be found out and look like like lying hypocrites. Unless, of course, the Yerpeeins are just so much better at covert surveillance that there just is no reasonable chance of them being found out....

I think a) they are doing it themselves, though probably to a lesser degree, b) the outrage is mostly spin, going through the motions. As for the risk that politicians may end up looking like lying hypocrites....well, that never happens.

Exactly. Why would this time be any different to the hundreds/thousands of other times these liars got caught out being hypocritical?

[Seth]

Surely every nation with the capability tries to bug every other nation whatever chance it gets.

Absolutely. Some more effectively than others though. It's called "espionage" and it's been going on since, well, before the Tudors.

Our national security apparatus would be derelict in its duty to protect American citizens if it were NOT bugging everybody else.

The issue is our security apparatus bugging US citizens, which is a clear violation of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution...maybe.

Depends on what they are listening to/looking for and whether they have fulfilled the punctilio of the Constitution by getting a warrant based on probable cause stating the particular place to be searched and the specific thing to be searched for.

The rest of you asshats don't matter because our Constitution doesn't protect you, so we can listen to whatever we want/can.

Get used to it.

It's good to be a superpower.

[Seth]

I didn't say I liked it. I just always assumed it was going on.

What don't you like about it?

What do you like about it?

I don't like anything about it.

George Bush started it all.

Caesar Agustus probably started it all.

[pErvinalia]

Get used to it.

It's good to be a superpower.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

[Seth]

Get used to it.

It's good to be a superpower.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

Oh, I will, I will...

We'll all go together when we go

By Tom Lehrer

When you attend a funeral,
It is sad to think that sooner or
Later those you love will do the same for you.
And you may have thought it tragic,
Not to mention other adjec-
Tives, to think of all the weeping they will do.
But don't you worry.
No more ashes, no more sackcloth.
And an armband made of black cloth
Will some day never more adorn a sleeve.
For if the bomb that drops on you
Gets your friends and neighbors too,
There'll be nobody left behind to grieve.

And we will all go together when we go.
What a comforting fact that is to know.
Universal bereavement,
An inspiring achievement,
Yes, we all will go together when we go.

We will all go together when we go.
All suffuse with an incandescent glow.
No one will have the endurance
To collect on his insurance,
Lloyd's of london will be loaded when they go.

Oh we will all fry together when we fry.
We'll be french fried potatoes by and by.
There will be no more misery
When the world is our rotisserie,
Yes, we will all fry together when we fry.

Down by the old maelstrom,
There'll be a storm before the calm.

And we will all bake together when we bake.
There'll be nobody present at the wake.
With complete participation
In that grand incineration,
Nearly three billion hunks of well-done steak.

Oh we will all char together when we char.
And let there be no moaning of the bar.
Just sing out a te deum
When you see that i.c.b.m.,
And the party will be "come as you are."

Oh we will all burn together when we burn.
There'll be no need to stand and wait your turn.
When it's time for the fallout
And saint peter calls us all out,
We'll just drop our agendas and adjourn.

You will all go directly to your respective valhallas.
Go directly, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dolla's.

And we will all go together when we go.
Ev'ry hottenhot and ev'ry eskimo.
When the air becomes uranious,
And we will all go simultaneous.
Yes we all will go together
When we all go together,
Yes we all will go together when we go.