1. Our drone program is garbage, cheap chinese factories are giving $200-1000 solutions that are better than our $60000 solutions (edit: cost of explosives not included, but for lower yields it's way cheaper). Same for our logistics, it's dated and the civilian market has better for 1/100th the cost.
2. Our opsec is broken. Whoever's behind these attacks on the US's intelligence community is winning. For example, we know for a fact that Russia has been using a very similar tool outside embassies, but the fact that we know that is because actors has so much to gain by dumping it into the public sphere, politically. The US increasingly cannot "keep a secret".
3. Our industrial capabilities are falling behind. America's efforts of pursuing ultimate cost efficiency have ultimately outsourced the majority of the US's modern manufacturing capacity. This means at a national level we're at a demonstrably disadvantage to nations with much more of a connection to their private sector, with the classic example being China.
Worrying about America's military-industrial complex is reasonable if you're near a naval deployment because America still has an impressive supply of very powerful explosives. But beyond that... we're sort of getting our asses kicked and our government appears to be rapidly destabilizing. You can suggest this is from outside influence, and I think there's strong reason to believe that there is an ongoing attack. But it can't explain the entire phenomenon.
So I'm not sure what you're afraid of from us. Nothing in the WL page should be surprising. We've seen similar tools disclosed earlier this year. These tools are more sophisticated versions of attacks that have been ongoing for, gosh... I had to write a less awesome version of this tool as a demonstration I was ready to move up in rank in a security challenge forum, it was so easy. It's harder now, for sure, but...
During the Arab Spring there were multiple reports of European surveillence technology being fundamental to the police state in the Middle East/Africa (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-40276568). Small arms made by H&K, Beretta, and FN etc are prevalent across the region. Advanced weapons like anti-aircraft systems also flood in from across the globe.
The UK, French, and Germans were also key supporters of Saddam Hussain during the Iran-Iraq War in the 80's and actively supported the WMD program there by supplying technology etc.
Every large power is involved in military manufacturing and seeks markets to sell too. Americans are no less ignorant to this than citizens in Europe, Russia, or Asia.
What this?
To many, the implicit assumption that USA strictly equals America and vice versa is just another artifact of the arrogance built into US culture.
To me, the idea that this is somehow a manifestation of our cultural arrogance and not just a mundane example of the malleability of human language is just another artifact of how certain people really, really want to find more reasons to hate us.
Targeted capabilities, not mass surveillance.
All we've seen is specifically targeted capabilities with expiration dates.
Penetrating air-gapped networks is exactly the capability one would expect from the CIA and its exactly the capability it should have under its mandate.
It also levels the playing field.
This may not be good for "Americans", but it is good for "Humans".
Do you think I really want to do business with an American company if I know they are liable to secret, hidden manipulation by their own government, while facilitating a facade of 'freedom'?
Currently you have several secrets you use to confirm your identity.
The idea of the individual would need to be eliminated to remove all secrets.
Even if these are benign and even sometimes silly secrets, even if no one would find them interesting, they are the only thing I have that sets me apart from others.
This is another reason I feel anxious over creeping mass surveillance and the loss of privacy. It's a direct threat to my individuality.
An organisation only knows who an individual is by the secrets they share with each other. It doesn't matter what the secret is, it comprises the identity.
It's why I get angry when I hear talk of backdooring/banning encryption.
It's why the phrase "I have nothing to hide" is a ridiculous fallacy.
Even the credit card in my wallet has multiple secrets to identify itself, and its ties to my account.
Without secrets, you become a non-person, because you are incapable of proving who you are.
Well, this is good when it happens, on occasion, anyway. It's not a static value; sometimes such states as you propose are valuable/valued - other times, not so. This is not absolute, since you mention practicality.
More specifically, since we are discussing governance, we must absolutely remove the individual from the occasion if we are to maintain a stable social construction, while at the same time strengthening the individuals position within either a fluid .. or rigid .. social structure.
I personally believe modern government is holding us back. Lets just get this out of the way now.
In the digital age, we don't need all the hierarchy; we simply need better apps. And I most certainly do not want my apps to have personality, if they are designed to ease the means by which I exchange, equitably, with everyone else using my app^W^W^Wwho is a member of my society...
>The idea of the individual would need to be eliminated to remove all secrets.
I believe this is a call-to-authority fallacy. You have not thought the original statement through; but rather acted as an individual unit of agency reacting to the pressure of the masses.
Of course we will still have individuals; human bodies are made that way, and hopefully will stay that way for a long time yet.
What we won't have is rock-star/evil-genius politicians, nor will we have much reason to keep secrets to each other, over who has rice and who has salt and who is on the way to Mars, and so on ...
Any organisational unit needs to be able to identify the state of any individual it interacts with, to ensure continued interaction, such as resource allocation. Because resources are finite, such allocations need to be fraud resistant in some way. That is achieved by proving identity - an exchange of "secrets".
Some examples from day-to-day life are license numbers, registration IDs, home address and so on. How private such a secret neefs to be is proportional to the ownership of the secret.
My address is usually fine to share, as a stranger may find it difficult to possess my house, though they can intercept things on-property, but its more difficult.
My bank details are not as safe to share, as they tend to be the sum totality of how a bank identifies me. Thus fraudulently removing a primary resource is easy.
> Well, this is good when it happens, on occasion, anyway.
I rarely see secrets being removed at all. In fact, the only time I can see an individual no longer having any secrets, would be when they are made a non-citizen, and can no longer interact within society, or not without an enormous amount of effort.
When will Russia, China, Israel, Iran, France, North Korea or other countries wares be leaked? Something tells me they wouldn’t even if they got it...