Friday, October 25, 2013
Everybody has spies
The only real difference between countries is when one catches another's spy. Then you get to put on airs and posture about your moral superiority. Then the other country grabs one of your spies or just throws out some diplomats. Everybody's honor is satisfied. The only difference with the NSA revelations is the size and detail of what was done.
European anger at reports that the U.S. has conducted surveillance of allies’ telephone calls and e-mails glosses over a basic truth, former intelligence officials say: everyone does it.High dudgeon is a national leader's stock in trade at times like this. And when they have soothed their countrymen's fears, everything just slides back to the status quo ante, with maybe a few adjustments for better security of the PM's phone.
“All governments collect information on nearly all governments,” said John McLaughlin, a former acting director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, said in a phone interview. “The posture of most governments is, ‘We want to collect as much info as we can, so we can be as fluent as we can when we make decisions.’ It’s just what governments do.”
President Barack Obama’s administration has been dogged this week by a series of disclosures detailing allegations of U.S. surveillance of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s private mobile phone, of former Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s e-mail while in office, and of the collection of data on ordinary French citizens.
The leaks, all traced to documents stolen by fugitive security contractor Edward Snowden, led Obama to call Merkel yesterday to assure her the U.S. government “is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the chancellor,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said at a briefing in Washington. The statement didn’t address whether Merkel’s mobile phone may have been monitored sometime in the past.
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