There is no such thing as an “allied intelligence agency”, by their very nature all non-US intelligence agencies are hostile to American citizens.
Thus, our domestic agencies conspiring with hostile foreign entities to defraud and undermine the citizens of the United States is treason.
To characterize the UK as an enemy of the US simply isn't true, the US and the UK are not at war; the UK government is not openly hostile to America. If an American gives classified information to the UK they could be convicted of espionage, but treason specifically would not stick. Not even close. Even attempting it would be a complete farce.
Treason charges couldn't even stick during the Cold War, when America and the Soviet Union were engaged in numerous proxy wars but weren't officially at war with each other. Many Americans sold secrets to the Soviet Union, got caught, and were convicted of espionage. But not treason. The Rosenbergs, who gave American nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union? Convicted and executed for conspiracy to commit espionage, not treason. John Walker and his son, US Navy officers who helped the Soviets decrypt millions of messages? Convicted of espionage, but not treason. Jerry Whitworth, Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen.. the list goes on. Convicted of espionage but not treason. The last treason convictions to ever happen in America were for acts committed during WW2.
"The existence of, and participation in, FVEY is espionage against the people of the United States."
If so, then presumably all the arguments against it are still valid, no? Assuming we can agree that "treason against the people of the United States" and "espionage against the people of the United States" are at least in the same ballpark of badness?
No, because again, these crimes have meanings defined by law which you can't simply replace with a meaning derived from the layperson understanding of the word. To argue that Five Eyes is the illegal kind of espionage, you'd have to argue that it actually violates the Espionage Act. Merely fitting it to the colloquial meaning of 'espionage' isn't sufficient.
What exactly is the objection to classifying some information as SECRET//US,UK,CAN,AUS,NZ instead of SECRET//NOFORN ?
Essentially what they’ve done is commit treason by colluding with hostile foreign powers to mutually spy on each others citizens, bypassing the pesky constitutional/charter limitations in the process.
In the right political climate we could Nuremberg trial 5 levels deep into the organizations responsible, I’m hopeful for that outcome.
Reminder: “I was just following orders/policy” wasn’t a defense then and it won’t be this time either.
If they are doing it, where's your evidence? You don't have it because otherwise, Klayman would have filed a lawsuit.
It has a well-sourced Wikipedia page for crying out loud.
But good job trying to sow doubt on a well-understood subject.
Then tell me, which document says otherwise? I've been waiting.
> Further, it’s done with the express purpose to route around laws
The law forbids the US government from asking anybody to spy on its citizens.
> But good job trying to sow doubt on a well-understood subject.
Well "understood" by conspiracy theorists. The rest of us living in reality knows this isn't happening or else we would have filed a lawsuit.
> It has a well-sourced Wikipedia page for crying out loud.
You’ll have to read most of it as well, the juicy parts are towards the bottom.
Bootlickers have the burden to prove data is not misused these days—not the other way around.
That well-sourced Wikipedia article doesn't say what you claim. Nowhere does it say the US government can access data on its own citizens from other Five Eyes countries.
The page does mention the canadian case and european fallout (though that with conflicting language).
Your premise is faulty however—that something does not exist because there’s not a court case.
- Of course they help each other, why would they even bother to get in touch otherwise?
- Of course warrants are rubber stamped.
- There’s no laws against using third party data.
- No one every gets in trouble… see Clapper lying to Congress on national TV. Oh, except the ones that speak up about the law.
They even have a technical term for it called “parallel construction.”
The important point is they get whatever they want without practical restraint. This whole subthread is an immaterial pedantic angle and waste of time, and I won’t be returning here further.
My premise is that something does not exist because there are no documents claiming it does. Snowden had the chance to leak such documents, but he did not. Despite that, you produced a conspiracy out of thin air as if Snowden had produced such documents.
> - Of course warrants are rubber stamped
Then why haven't we seen thousands of warrants to obtain data from other countries on US citizens used in prosecutions?
> Of course they help each other, why would they even bother to get in touch otherwise
They help each other by sharing intelligence in other countries, not by helping each other break their own laws.
> - There’s no laws against using third party data
Then why doesn't the government just read your email?
> This whole subthread is an immaterial pedantic angle and waste of time, and I won’t be returning here further.
The next time you post conspiracy theories on HN, I will be there.
Because USA is good, so if they are the ones doing the spying, it's just for pretty legit reasons, while chinese people don't speak english so they clearly are up to no good /s
But duh, of course it's bad when someone else spies on you! That can only make you less safe.
It's not about "ok", it's about winning the "war".
For me, USA is the more imminent danger, so I don't understand why people aren't equally appalled.
the answer here is the difference between "me" and "people"
after all, humans have a tendency to think other people think the same way they do