Snowden: European mass surveilance comparable to US programs

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/02/us-europe-surveillance-idUSBRE9A103K20131102

(Reuters) - Spy agencies across Western Europe are working together on mass surveillance of Internet and phone traffic comparable to programs run by their U.S. counterpart denounced by European governments, Britain's Guardian newspaper reported on Saturday.

Citing documents leaked by fugitive former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden, the Guardian said methods included tapping into fiber optic cables and working covertly with private telecommunications companies.

The Guardian named Germany, France, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands as countries where intelligence agencies had been developing such methods in cooperation with counterparts including Britain's surveillance agency GCHQ.

When is Snowden going to start releasing details about Russian/Chinese intelligence agencies? At the moment all he's really accomplishing is weakening Western ones and humiliating their governments.

No way, American is the only evil country in the world that does this type of thing. I don't believe it for a second.

/sarcasm

Pretty much, this SOB needs to get terminal cancer asap

Snowden (or the Guardian, assuming Snowden already gave them all of his intel and they are the ones pacing the releases) isn't releasing information on Russian intel collection for the same reason WikiLeaks isn't releasing Russian classified information. Russia pretty much told WikiLeaks they would "disappear" if they leaked Russian intel, a far cry from the west simply pleading with them not to do it.

Snowden knows that unlike the US, Russia won't hold back on silencing him, especially since it would wear out his welcome over there faster than a pedophile inside of a day care center. As for China, the world already knows they are not the champions of human rights and they already make no effort in hiding their internet censorship and monitoring.

Of course not. It always surprises me when people don't think other countries do the same. Naive or stupid....you decide.

This is news?

Did anyone honestly believe otherwise?

If the media is to be believed, the US is worse than North Korea and Nazi Germany put together.

But wait....all of the America haters out there swore Snowden would be assassinated by a drone strike within days of revealing this info. I thought the US was evil and Russia was just the good guys slapping around the big bad bully? You mean they were wrong? No way!

This is something that all the America haters on this forum fail to realize. That they ignore the simple fact that their own governments are doing the same thing shows the very hypocrisy this forum is known for. If they hate the US so much, why the hell do they come to a website that is based in the US and owned by a US company? :wall:

They could also hate their own governments for doing it.

Or he worked as a US contractor so he has information about U.S and other Western countries intelligence programs...

The US Government may not know everything but they know a lot more than you think.

First sensible post in a chain of nonsensible hogwash.

Regarding the comparison between the U.S/West and Russia/China, the U.S is not holding off on silencing Snowden or any other whistleblower out of altruistic, humanitarian and libertarian motives. Its simply doing so out of self-interest. It is a price the U.S must be willing to pay if it wants to maintain its image as a civil, progressive and democratic power, an image the U.S sells to the world and its citizens alike. That same image contribute much to the U.S' political and economic hegemony on the world.

If you can't see that then I don't know what to tell you.

With the U.S and other Western Countries Snowden/Guardian have documents explicitly stating and describing these programs.

With Russia and China they don't have nearly the same information or credibility of information

Anyways everyone already assumes Russia and China are trying to spy on everyone they don't really try to hide that they do it, the U.S and European countries on the other hand...

This world is going to hell with all the conspiracy nutters.

Everyone in the west is the same, the only difference is that the US is so strong everyone is watching it's every step. If the UK, Germany, Spain, France, Italy/whatever would be as powerful as the US it would do the exact same crap. Veiled in some different cover, but basically the same. It's not any worse or any better than anyone.

Well, apart from most of the rest of the world, which make the US look like utopia.

I'm curious as of who you guys think might benefit of those documents and its level of detailed description of U.S/Western intelligence programs. I'm sure, and I think we can all agree on this, that all parties involved already know this information, putting aside the PR charades that have been taking place for a while now. Its not like the Russians were waiting for a whistleblower to tell them that the U.S spies on everyone everywhere, or that its eavesdropping and tapping into Internet traffic from all over the world. Every state with a functional intelligence agency already has this level of "classified" information on the U.S. All intelligence agencies of first world countries know this much about each other at the very least. The only possible beneficiaries of these leaks are the people. But again most people do know these information, it goes without saying really. And those who just knew won't do anything with it either.

I'm not sure what we're discussing here lol.

Most people didn't know that almost everything you did online was monitored, most phone calls all over the world are monitored. That there are back doors into all kinds of programs, that the U.S undermined encryption to have back doors into it... The list goes on, if you said that the U.S/Europe was doing these kinds of things a year or 2 ago you would have got the conspiracy theory picture posted.

Shit everyone already knows.

Maybe I should start stating the obvious to everyone.

Why? All governments spy on others whether friendly or not. It pays to know what your friends are doing just as well as what your enemies are. A nation does not want to be blindsided by an action of an ally. Reading their mail so to speak keeps them informed as to what is happening.

This is part of what kids fail to realize. It has been going on since man first walked on this Earth and will continue until man becomes extinct.

I was just refuting your argument that people who hate the us for their espionage are hypocrites because their governments do the same, because said persons don't necessarily have to agree with what their government does.

Also I doubt that espionage was of any use for hunter-gatherers.

Disagree.

Please explain?

Collecting information on neighboring tribes that compete w/ you over scarce resources

Collecting information on social competitors within same tribe

To clarify; I was talking about hunter-gatherers in 12.000 bc. They almost never engaged in war-like activities. If there were scarce resources, they simply moved to another area.

There wasn't really any social status to compete over. Hunter-gatherer societies were egalitarian. They had no leaders at all or temporary leaders whose authority was severely constrained.

Moving takes time. Eating is a pretty immediate concern. Not all espionage necessarily deals strictly with violent conflict and could relate to food issues.

Informal social hierarchies were definitely a thing even if there was an absence of an established ranking systems. You've seen how groups of peers, friends even, without leaders behave. Moreover, it's not exactly settled that these groups of people were especially nonviolent (it is highly probable that violence was a prime source of death), so espionage could be highly pertinent. Let's not paint an overly idealistic picture.

I don't understand why this is shocking people. Any competent country is gathering intelligence including that of their allies. That's the point of an intelligence agency; to gather information.

Agreed. These Snowden "revelations" revealed nothing that wasn't already known or reasonably expected. By harming international relations, increasing global hostility and distrust, and possibly even launching the world on a communications intelligence arms race, Snowden's legacy may prove to be a bleak one.

You can't blame Snowden for that.

If the American gov't didn't go on a manhunt for him, all that crap could be avoided.

uh, no shit

I highly doubt that most people didn't know that or at least hadn't an idea about it. Its 101 government. They may not have gone to the trouble to educate themselves any further on the subject but they knew of its existence.

Either way it really doesn't make any difference. Assuming that they didn't know like you said, what did they do with their newly acquired knowledge?

I really can't comprehend Snowden's motive to do what he did. Did he honestly believe it would change anything? Its certainly trivial and of absolutely no value on the level of national intelligence agencies and it obviously changed nothing on the level of everyday people. I have no idea why he pulled that stunt.

I thought it was common knowledge that everyone is listening to everyone else. That's why i thought it was weird when Foreign diplomats were acting shocked and outraged when they found out that the US had them tapped~

Hypocrites~

His actions have changed a lot. First off, people now know that their activity is being surveilled. That change alone is invaluable. With this new info, people have acted accordingly; some have held rallies, others have tightened their security online. Some haven't changed their habits at all and that's fine but again, simply knowing of it is important. Now, I don't what kind of sweeping changes you expect from this relatively new info but history has shown us that things just don't change overnight. It takes time; that's true of all reforms that have taken place.

I think if anyone didn't know that information they put out wasn't capable of being watched...then they are total morons.

No one knew for certain, nor did they know how it was being done.

I'd say that is wrong. Don't speak for others. Apparently you didn't know.

I had a feeling but no, I didn't know. There was no credible evidence which confirmed it before now...or was there?

you're an idiot if you believe things without solid evidence to back up claims to show it is true. Before all these new leaks in the past year or so, you'd be not much more than going on hunches. Now you have a solid trail and clear evidence of all kinds of unconstitutional and illegal actions being committed by the NSA. It's the only logical first step, to leak the solid info. Now not only is it leaked, but the people with the info are releasing it at a very slow pace. Release it all at once and everyone forgets about it. At the rate the info is being presented, it's going to take years for it all to come out. Now you can never let it leave the limelight

Are you kidding? You thought disseminating information out in the open was secure?

avoiding the question...

I didn't avoid anything. I'm shocked that anyone thought they had privacy on the internet or over cell calls. They are not secure lines. You must be very naive.

I was unaware that Gamespot was a government run website.

Afterall there's a difference between not liking the US government and the US as a whole.

I didn't say that GS was a US government run or owned website now did I? The word company is a dead giveaway that it isn't. :wall:

They would never have taken him out with a drone strike like you weirdo conspiracy theorists contend, but yes he would have been silenced by incarceration. We do not assassinate spies, we put them in jail. Please tell me the last traitor the United States put to death. And I am not talking about people who went militant Islam overseas, I am talking about espionage.

Score one for America

Every country does this, therefore it is okay. amirite or amirite?