Well that's nice; I'm glad to see that our common interests as HN users extends only to the US border.

Widespread unchecked surveillance is evil in and of itself, it doesn't matter _who_ is doing the surveilling.

Following your argument, if the Chinese government engaged in exactly the same sort of surveillance against you that the NSA does, you'd be fine with it, since it would merely be international espionage. But in the end, the same information about you is being stored. And your information is probably less trustworthy with the Chinese government than even with the NSA!

'Spying' in the traditional meaning is qualitatively different to dragnet surveillance of all communications.

I understand that all countries engage in a level of spying, and that friends may not always remain so, but the US' seemingly widespread lack of trust in _any_ other country, only works when you're (1) right and (2) the most powerful country.

These may not always hold true, and it's when bad things happen that you need friends you can trust (and that can trust you).

Firstly, I'm not from the US. Nextly, yes. Yes, I would be ok with the Chinese government spying on me, if they were able to.

In the case of the NSA, the NSA coerced/worked with many private US companies and took the data from them (rather than somehow collecting the data themselves). Such coercion of American companies is what I believe should be curtailed.

The thing is, China has no such reach in my life. I don't use any Chinese websites to store my data. I don't use any Chinese social networks to keep up with my friends. I don't use a Chinese email service.

No, it is a widespread and very dangerous misconception. Rights as conceived at the time of the drafting of the US Constitution are not granted but rather inherent. The Bill of Rights enumerated rights the founders believed all people had. It was a list but not meant to be complete. In fact one strong argument against enumerating them at all was that people would come to believe the list was complete or that it somehow granted the enumerated rights.

The religious ones thought these rights came from God but in any case most all agreed these are "Natural Rights" that you have because you are a human being. Such rights can only be violated by governments. They cannot be granted or taken away.

This attitude that rights only adhere to citizens of the US, common among united statesians, is a pathetic indicator of the level of indoctrination. It's also morally and philosophically appalling. It's the same attitude that allows united statesians to support bombing brown people on the other side of the world for whatever reasons their leaders give them.