Thanks, that was pretty good, thanks for saying that.

And I do like many/most Americans that I've met, it's just that the discourse on this subject on HN had started feeling a little bit one-sided. As I said, I wasn't trying to single you out, it was something that had been bubbling under my skin for a while now (and others too).

For what it's worth, if my government was spying in NK, the way yours is intercepting, recording, cataloguing and datamining the lives of all (Internet/technology-using) humans on this planet, I would in fact not be okay with this. Because it's no way to treat people, anywhere. As we've seen every single time, just because something that is actually wrong seems justifiable, doesn't mean it should be done because it'll just lower the threshold for it to be used again in situations where you wouldn't agree with it. Because you can't close that door, you can't say "I trust your judgement, this time", because in a few years it'll be somebody else making that call, and the machinery is already there.

Of course irony has it that not even the US gov is spying on NK in that manner, because they can't really get a useful intelligence foothold in that place. So the comparison doesn't actually quite work, because they're doing all this very deep hard-core intercepting/recording/datamining on pretty much all places except NK, and a few others that you might consider "justified". Why is it that the places where they far exceeded the boundaries of what can be reasoned as "justifiable intelligence" are in fact not the places where it might actually matter? Because they were allies. The UK hacked Belgium, FFS! It is an abuse of trust. For what, for nothing, well I'm guessing for business intelligence.

So yeah, that's a bit of a conundrum. With "national security" and all. Some tough choices maybe? But really, nobody said it would be easy. If you're dealing in global politics, affecting the lives of billions of people all over the world, all with different attitudes and beliefs, that's what you're signing up for. And there is no easy way out, 100% "Total Information Awareness" isn't a solution, for similar reasons as "let's bomb the ever-loving shit out of everybody" is not (as the US seems to be slowly learning).

See, the Dutch NSA, called AIVD, is doing just as bad. At some point they were tapping more phones than the US. If you buy Bitcoin you're on a list. They are already tracking our locations via the cellphones and "invisible text messages" and "Bob" knows what. It's pretty bad. But they're doing it to just these 17M people and it's our problem. This is why I donate money to Bits of Freedom, which is like the Dutch version of the EFF. One thing they're very good at, is informing politicians what all this new-fangled technology can do, so they can make better choices. So I hope B.o.F. can put some brakes on that. However, if my government were to turn its eyes outward, and decide it can just invade and intercept the personal lives of, well, anybody guilty of the crime of not being a Dutch citizen, I'd damn well be outraged, and expect my gov to cut it the hell out. ("Some of my best friends aren't Dutch citizens!!", Americans, in fact). And I'd demand that even though B.o.F. is a Dutch foundation, they'll work to put a stop to that as well even if it doesn't directly affect Dutch citizens.

Because, really, should allies have to be protecting their citizens from each other? Well they should protect their citizens, that's one thing a government is for, but ostensibly the point of having allies is that you're not trying to screw one another over.

Okay, and sorry this is getting a bit long, but I must point out that it is in fact more complicated than this :) Now it seems like I say just the US is screwing over its allies (and I also said the UK was). But part of the reality of the situation is also that many of these both-heavily-spied-upon-as-well-as-allied countries, are in fact governments screwing over their own citizens, with agreements that say basically "you spy on my back, I'll spy on yours". Which is another reason why you need to look past your own boundaries instead of asking/expecting your gov to better protect just your privacy. Because they don't really want to. And they use the excuse of spying on other countries as a distraction. As has been pointed out many times already, in the US there's some things in your Constitution that says, if anyone was listening, roughly that they shouldn't spy on US citizens for no good reason. That is why they have the deals with other countries, we can't legally spy on our own people, so you spy on ours, we spy on yours, deal? (this has been the case since ECHELON, it's right there on Wikipedia).

And THAT, is why you should not just expect your government to protect you from the other spying eyes, but why you should demand that they stop the type of intrusive surveillance / intercepting / recording / datamining they're doing to others as well. Because you're not alone in this world. Or, if only, to view from an economical perspective again, it removes the bargaining chip, if they don't have the deep intelligence on their "allies" they cannot trade it back for the deep intelligence that they are legally prohibited from gathering on their own citizens.