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Re:GCHQ intercepted foreign politicians' communications at G... by barry-cotter on Sunday June 16, 2013 @07:41PM (#5890561)
With enemies really, who cares about the morality? They're out to get you, you're out to get them. With allies if you're both spying on each other you are thoroughly in the verify part of "Trust but verify." A decent intelligence network can give one a much higher level of security in one's allies good intentions.

Also, morality? Intelligence agencies? This is realpolitik man. If we assume high level politicians resemble executives they're 20% pstchopaths. The other 80% are also quite capable of reasoning amorally about goals and power.

Re:GCHQ intercepted foreign politicians' communications at G... by zxcdw on Sunday June 16, 2013 @07:49PM (#5890588)
I as a foreign citizen do take the morality of intelligence actions and foreign politics quite seriously.

As far as my view(which is rather ignorant, hence why I would like to know and discuss more) is concerned, I'd think that some form of international agreement on spying/intelligence gathering should be formed and enforced. For example the NSA hacking to Hong Kong machines should be a criminal offense, and the same should go the other way around. This stuff should really go through the legal system and people should be punished accordingly. Just because it is some form of governmental intelligence agency shouldn't ever put it above the law.

As we have seen with the case of NSA, it is used for domestic spying too and nobody really knows for what else.

Re:GCHQ intercepted foreign politicians' communications at G... by barry-cotter on Monday June 17, 2013 @12:54AM (#5891501)
I'm not American either dude.

Your proposed system requires a world government with real powers of enforcement. It is not in the interests of the USA, China, Russia, India, Pakistan or France to do this. Absent wholehearted cooperation by them this cannot happen. If you got all of them on board you might be able to get the rest of the world on board.

In the world we live in, and will continue living in until there is a world government there are bad people everywhere and some of them work for other governments, who can and will protect them. This doesn't even touch on the fact that your/my/any human values are not universal, and universal law is about universal enforcement. Whoever wins the last war gets to tell everyone what to do. That's what world government is.

Re:GCHQ intercepted foreign politicians' communications at G... by a3n on Sunday June 16, 2013 @10:06PM (#5891005)
"With enemies really, who cares about the morality?"

Yeah, fuck 'em, burn the village to the ground.

Re:GCHQ intercepted foreign politicians' communications at G... by barry-cotter on Monday June 17, 2013 @01:01AM (#5891526)
Indeed this is an accurate statement of the values of many people everywhere. Given sufficiently alien values extermination is the goal. Compare the diversity of legitimate governmental systems in 1900 and now. Democracy is existentially hostile to everything else.

And burning the village to the ground is probably a stupid idea, which is a sufficient reason not to do it. But if it can be done and is the most efficient way of achieving the goal there are people doing it.

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