Court Allowed NSA To Spy On All But 4 Countries 242
mrspoonsi (2955715) writes A court permitted the NSA to collect information about governments in 193 countries and foreign institutions like the World Bank, according to a secret document the Washington Post published Monday. The certification issued by a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in 2010 shows the NSA has the authority to "intercept through U.S. companies not just the communications of its overseas targets, but any communications about its targets as well," according to the Post's report. Only four countries in the world — Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — were exempt from the agreement, due to existing no-spying agreements that the Post highlights in this document about the group of countries, known as "Five Eyes" with the U.S.
Re:Uh... Yeah? (Score:5, Interesting)
Forcing Microsoft, Google, et al to spy for the NSA, using secret orders from a secret court, seems rather more problematic.
Re:Uh... Yeah? (Score:3, Interesting)
A government spying on another government = okay
A government spying on another country's people = not okay
A government spying on its own people = OMGWTFBBQ
Re:Uh... Yeah? (Score:5, Interesting)
The other big problem is that the NSA is destroying US company's credibility. No-one wants to buy Cisco networking gear because the NSA systematically infects their products with malware and even physically modifies them before they leave the country. No-one wants to store their data in Microsoft's cloud because the NSA has their grubby little fingers all over it. The entire US infosec industry is basically a joke now.
Would you even want to buy or fly on a Dreamliner now? Maybe that sounds paranoid, but if the Snowden revelations have taught us anything it's that we were not paranoid enough and there are almost no limits to what the US considers acceptable.