French Pres Hollande: no talks, no free trade deal until U.S stops spying on Europe

[Brainonska511]

How quickly guys like you are willing to accept abuses of our government. I guess since its "Your guy in office" you have to defend him like partisan fanboy. Though I'd imagine if Romney were in charge you be foaming at the mouth right about now.

I'm perfectly fine with my government spying on other countries. I'm not fine with the government spying on its citizens, as it seems to be doing with PRISM...

 

[piasabird]

I cant recall the govt of the USA asking me if it was ok to just spy on all communications. However, you should just assume that no conversation you are having is private.

 

[5150Joker]

The US government and especially NSA are doing their job protecting US interests. While spying on so called allies may seem distasteful, it is a necessary evil. France and others are complaining because they likely want to use this story to embarrass the US and gain concessions. Those of you whining about this have a very narrow vision of geopolitics.

 

[piasabird]

I wonder how the UK has access to prism? This is something they said while being questioned at congress; that the we were sharing NSA data with the UK. I wonder how that works and who else is sharing information and if they have some backdoors to prism built in. Then comes the question about whether they can be hacked. Even if they are hacked how could anyone ever download that much data?

I think what we should do is monitor all the communications to and from the IRS.

 

[Orignal Earl]

The US government and especially NSA are doing their job protecting US interests. While spying on so called allies may seem distasteful, it is a necessary evil. France and others are complaining because they likely want to use this story to embarrass the US and gain concessions. Those of you whining about this have a very narrow vision of geopolitics.

Govs spy on each other.
I think the big deal about this is the US spying on the citizens of these countries?

 

[piasabird]

It is illegal for the NSA to spy on US Citizens.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Govs spy on each other.
I think the big deal about this is the US spying on the citizens of these countries?

That's the thing. It may sound strange speaking about ethics and spying but intelligence had been about gathering information for specific concerns. Yes sometimes we went fishing but the idea of gathering all knowledge about all people would have 1984 stamped on it. It's the result of a powerful paranoid unrestrained. No sir, I didn't like it.

 

[DucatiMonster696]

I'm perfectly fine with my government spying on other countries. I'm not fine with the government spying on its citizens, as it seems to be doing with PRISM...

The difference between one and other other (spying on your allies and spying on your citizens) is very slim in the long term. If a government has no problem spying on its allies then it's only a matter of time, opportunity and justification until they turn their efforts and gaze within the ranks of its own citizens. I don't buy that government will restrain itself just to one sphere versus the other in the long term when the temptation and ability to do both is very easy as government grows larger and larger and needs more reasons to justify its expansion, i.e. reasons to justify further taxation, regulation, mandates, and obfustication of its agencies and operations, etc.

 

[Nebor]

The US government and especially NSA are doing their job protecting US interests. While spying on so called allies may seem distasteful, it is a necessary evil. France and others are complaining because they likely want to use this story to embarrass the US and gain concessions. Those of you whining about this have a very narrow vision of geopolitics.

Yup. France and Germany have both benefit from US intelligence agencies keeping an eye on their populations. This has led to numerous foiled terrorist plots. The UK, France and Germany are at high risk for domestic terrorism due to their large immigrant populations.

Our allies just see this as their chance to squeeze a little more out of us. They don't want us to stop spying.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Yup. France and Germany have both benefit from US intelligence agencies keeping an eye on their populations. This has led to numerous foiled terrorist plots. The UK, France and Germany are at high risk for domestic terrorism due to their large immigrant populations.

Our allies just see this as their chance to squeeze a little more out of us. They don't want us to stop spying.

Why not have a recording geotag implanted in everyone at birth and not let anyone buy or participate in anything who doesn't submit? You could implant it in the forehead or hand and everyone. Then everyone would be safe. The government would know who you saw, what you said, where you went. An All Seeing Eye providing perfect security.

 

[Patranus]

Laughable for him to act like France isn't spying on the United States.

Here is an idea. No more US troops to police the world. Make the EU build up their own military. See the cost they incur doing so.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Laughable for him to act like France isn't spying on the United States.

Here is an idea. No more US troops to police the world. Make the EU build up their own military. See the cost they incur doing so.

So how many of your calls do you think the French intercepted?

 

[DucatiMonster696]

Laughable for him to act like France isn't spying on the United States.

Here is an idea. No more US troops to police the world. Make the EU build up their own military. See the cost they incur doing so.

I'm not a fan of the French president but you gotta admit we gave him a card to use and he is using it. Then again what else is he gonna do when his warped plan to try to tax France into economic recovery off the back of successful French citizens in the nation failed so badly?

lol

 

[Nebor]

Why not have a recording geotag implanted in everyone at birth and not let anyone buy or participate in anything who doesn't submit? You could implant it in the forehead or hand and everyone. Then everyone would be safe. The government would know who you saw, what you said, where you went. An All Seeing Eye providing perfect security.

There's a lot of advantages to such a system. You're not going to freak out someone who's pretty comfortable living with authoritarianism.

 

[Orignal Earl]

There's a lot of advantages to such a system. You're not going to freak out someone who's pretty comfortable living with authoritarianism.

I've often thought after reading a lot of your posts, is that all you want is someone to boss you around and abuse you
I can't understand it, but have met a few women who also enjoy that. That's all ok to have in your personal life, but the rest of us really really don't want that in our government

 

[Fenixgoon]

Yup. France and Germany have both benefit from US intelligence agencies keeping an eye on their populations. This has led to numerous foiled terrorist plots. The UK, France and Germany are at high risk for domestic terrorism due to their large immigrant populations.

Our allies just see this as their chance to squeeze a little more out of us. They don't want us to stop spying.

and those numerous foiled terror plots amounted to potentially how many deaths?

hell, let's take 9/11. let's say you had 1 9/11 every month. that's 36,000 people dead per year. that's the same number of people who die in car crashes each year.

that's 5% of the number of people who die from heart disease.

in the grand scheme of things, terrorism doesn't kill many people. it's the psychological effect. that's why it's called terrorism.

if people weren't such sheep, they'd see that they worry about damn-near nothing.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

There's a lot of advantages to such a system. You're not going to freak out someone who's pretty comfortable living with authoritarianism.

I didn't expect to freak you out. I was testing you.

Sometime should tell you what you can and can't do. I think it should be Earl.

 

[Orignal Earl]

I didn't expect to freak you out. I was testing you.

Sometime should tell you what you can and can't do. I think it should be Earl.

I said I've met women like that, I didn't date them
I could never hit a woman, even if she wanted it sexualy..since it would turn me off
I could get him a job, tell him he has to work as hard and keep up with the Mexicans
A day (if he lasts that long) of that and he would be all content and sleeping hard by 6:30

 

[Fern]

It turns out that France is conducting very similar data mining efforts to the US. This is a surprise to no one outside of apparently a few people on this board.

After googling it seems you are referring to a claim that France has domestic spying programs, perhaps similar to ours.

So what?

As far as I'm concerned France spying on French people is a French matter, I simply couldn't care less. I don't even know if they have an equivalent to our 4th.

If France were spying on us I'd be angry, but they're not.

Fern

 

[Boris Morozov]

lol@america thinking spying on everyone will thwart terrorism. America wants to stop terrorism? Maybe it should start at its terrible foreign policy

 

[Orignal Earl]

lol@america thinking spying on everyone will thwart terrorism. America wants to stop terrorism? Maybe it should start at its terrible foreign policy

So I'm thinking what if one of the fine American ladies I know, wants a pic of my dick
The US needs to make sure my pic of my dick is not a terrorist threat, they need to analyze it and make sure it will in no way threatens the US
I have no problem with them looking at my dick
But I have to wonder what the legal limit for dick or what could be considered a threat in the US
How big are the dicks in France?
How big are they in Germany?
How do we determine which dick size is code red or yellow?

My US girlfriends ain't getting any pics of my dick till this is established

 

[ivwshane]

After googling it seems you are referring to a claim that France has domestic spying programs, perhaps similar to ours.

So what?

As far as I'm concerned France spying on French people is a French matter, I simply couldn't care less. I don't even know if they have an equivalent to our 4th.

If France were spying on us I'd be angry, but they're not.

Fern

The claim was made, a few pages ago, that the spying the US is doing is unprecedented, not only the spying on Americans but also the spying on our allies. Multiple posts, with citations, have now destroyed that claim.

I don't know if you were one of the posters making such a claim (I'm too lazy to look) but do you agree that spying on US citizens and our allies and the reverse is all something thats been happening for a while now (before Obama became president)?

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

The claim was made, a few pages ago, that the spying the US is doing is unprecedented, not only the spying on Americans but also the spying on our allies. Multiple posts, with citations, have now destroyed that claim.

I don't know if you were one of the posters making such a claim (I'm too lazy to look) but do you agree that spying on US citizens and our allies and the reverse is all something thats been happening for a while now (before Obama became president)?

Well it would be interesting to see you find my post where I said the US never spied, or looked into domestic communications. ATT was tapped decades ago when it was THE phone company. It seems that if it happened at all it's an excuse for anything which followed since. You can count me out on that part. Some might say that past abuses excuse present one. Not me. One might say a little program is no different than a huge expansive effort to eventually be able to monitor all communications by anyone anywhere. Not me. YMMV.

 

[ivwshane]

Well it would be interesting to see you find my post where I said the US never spied, or looked into domestic communications. ATT was tapped decades ago when it was THE phone company. It seems that if it happened at all it's an excuse for anything which followed since. You can count me out on that part. Some might say that past abuses excuse present one. Not me. One might say a little program is no different than a huge expansive effort to eventually be able to monitor all communications by anyone anywhere. Not me. YMMV.

I wasn't talking about you

 

[Fern]

The claim was made, a few pages ago, that the spying the US is doing is unprecedented, not only the spying on Americans but also the spying on our allies. Multiple posts, with citations, have now destroyed that claim.

I don't know if you were one of the posters making such a claim (I'm too lazy to look) but do you agree that spying on US citizens and our allies and the reverse is all something thats been happening for a while now (before Obama became president)?

Here's what eskimospy and I were saying:

Originally Posted by eskimospy View Post
-snip-
If you think France or Germany doesn't constantly spy on US citizens and constantly conduct espionage against their allies, you are incredibly naive.

No, I don't believe France or Germany is constantly spying on all US citizens, grabbing all our info whether it be phone calls, financial data that went over the internet etc.

If I did I'd be mighty G.D. pissed at our federal govt for not preventing it.

Fern

I never remarked about some Euro country spying on their own citizens. I don't care about them.

But YES, I do think that the US spying on all it's citizens and snatching all their digital data is unprecedented.

No, I don't agree that programs like PRISM and NUCLEON existed before Obama. They could have, it's simply that I don't know. I don't believe that info has been made public.

Fern