Singapore & South Korea Help NSA Tap Undersea Cables 137
An anonymous reader writes "Singapore and South Korea are playing key roles helping the United States and Australia tap undersea telecommunications links across Asia, according to top secret documents leaked by Edward Snowden. Indonesia and Malaysia have been key targets for Australian and Singaporean intelligence collaboration since much of Indonesia's telecommunications and Internet traffic is routed through Singapore. The NSA has a stranglehold on trans-Pacific communications channels with interception facilities on the West coast of the United States and at Hawaii and Guam, tapping all cable traffic across the Pacific Ocean as well as links between Australia and Japan. Japan had refused to take part."
Why are they doing this? (Score:5, Interesting)
So I guess everybody is helping the US out with spying and such, but what is their motivation?
1) They think it's the right thing to do?
2) There is some (in)direct monetary gain?
3) They also get spy data?
4) They think the US is awesome?
5) All of the above?
6) Other?
I feel like i just wrote a poll, but I'm geniunly interested for some insight.
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For scraps that fall from their master's table.
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I was actually considering a VPN service that terminates in Singapore - they're generally very good about economic freedom.
Now, no. Will other privacy-concerned people follow suit? Will we make enough of an impact that the VPN provider will need less space in the Singapore data center? Will those effects accumulate and hurt their local economy?
Anybody know what the current reputation of The Netherlands is?
Current reputation of The Netherlands (Score:4, Informative)
Anybody know what the current reputation of The Netherlands is?
Awful. The prime minister even refuses to say anything bad about the unlawful interceptions, because "it could harm our interests as well". Clearly "our interests" do not include the interests of the citizens. And our domestic affairs minister wants to give the police unwarranted tapping powers with the possibility to install spyware, only controlled by their own organisation.
Disclaimer: I live there.
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Thank you for the information. The other two choices from this vendor are the US and the UK. On to the next honeypot, errr, vendor, then.
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With those alternatives, I would choose the Netherlands.
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I'd get two, one in Iran, one in the US, encrypt both and chain them. Of course both will be tapped, but they will most certainly not cooperate. So one knows where you're coming from and one knows where you're going to, but neither knows both ends and either would have to break the encryption to the other machine to tap into the traffic.
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When it comes to spying on citizens, the Dutch have a rather poor track record, with a history of phone taps and other activities. Ever since the Dutch joined the war on terror with a number of soldiers in the Afghan province of Uruzgan, ties with the NSA are rather close.
Sources (in Dutch):
1. Support of previous post (minister not wanting to criticize NSA): http://nos.nl/artikel/578418-rutte-kaken-op-elkaar-over-nsa.html [nos.nl]
2. Thousands of phone taps already as early as 2009: http://www.nrcnext.nl/blog/2009/09 [nrcnext.nl]
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There was an interesting article on BBC site about the referendum in Switzerland. It ended :
Switzerland's system of democracy means citizens can call nationwide votes on issues that concern them.(*)
I considered that interesting because such explanation means also that all other citizens in old democracies in the West cannot really do anything on issues that concern them - such concept is foreign to them i.e. requires an additional comment. Seems like the whole concept about letting people decide is gone from Western democracy - the only thing we directly decide is what asshole is holding office and in US even
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Anybody know what the current reputation of The Netherlands is?
Awful. The prime minister even refuses to say anything bad about the unlawful interceptions, because "it could harm our interests as well". Clearly "our interests" do not include the interests of the citizens. And our domestic affairs minister wants to give the police unwarranted tapping powers with the possibility to install spyware, only controlled by their own organisation.
Disclaimer: I live there.
My condolences... http://slashdot.org/journal/570913/privacy-for-the-surveillance-age [slashdot.org]
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they're generally very good about economic freedom.
Now, no. Will other privacy-concerned people follow suit?
No, because most "privacy-concerned" people already understand that "economic freedom" just means the freedom for people to gain unlimited power, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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If everyone was always nice, communism would be infallible.
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The exact same is true of capitalism.
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Oh well, that's idealism for you.
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If everyone uses that freedom, there should not be a problem.
That's a crock, because the organizing principle behind naive 'free markets' amplifies differences in wealth. Larger accumulations of capital have more opportunities to garner large profits; their own money-making 'efficiency' increases as their competition and most of their customers are driven to greater relative inefficiency.
Unregulated wealth accumulation has its own built-in network effects that lead to monopoly situations. Thus the subject of finance should never be considered without a healthy dose o
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Doesn't matter very much what the Netherland's reputation is, if the NSA straddles the backbones that serve the country. I really don't understand how anyone has missed that vital fact. The US knows where all the cables are. If they don't control either terminus, they can just splice in to the damned thing any where they find convenient.
Today, NO ONE has a good reputation for privacy. NO ONE can guarantee that the five-eyed-googly-monster isn't reading your every exchange. (Or, would that be the five-g
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There are plenty of places that get favorable press for "economic freedom" because they ignore the dealings of (only) the wealthy. As far as overall freedom is concerned, however, I wouldn't place Singapore far from Dubai. Online traffic is intensely political now- not merely "economic activity".
I think everyone concerned about privacy should look at I2P instead of VPNs... having "private" in the acronym doesn't mean that in 2013 they are much good in actually protecting privacy. Only a proper darknet can p
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Does it really matter where your VPN terminates?
You are still probably accessing servers in the US, so your data travels back to the US where it is dutifully monitored and logged.
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To add to Errol's reply.. Basically, our minister of security and justice, Ivo Opstelten, loves to act like a rabid fanboy of the book 1984, and of the things the UK and USA are already doing. We're just lagging behind a year or two on the field of "massive disregard for citizens' rights".
Not an ideal choice, in other words.
Source: dutch citizen. Annoyed dutch citizen.
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Is that a suicide note?
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The French/Germans/etc do not have:
- ELINT / SIGINT capabilities on par with the US (at least in terms of volume capability)
- Fully staffed military base(s) nearby.
- Readiness to go to war (politically and psychologically)
The South Koreans ARE on the front-line of a cold war that could become extremely hot, and I guess they feel the need to:
- Not antagonize the only ally with real capability to help them if the North starts shooting.
- Have access to some intelligence regarding NK and the PRC.
As for Singapor
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The US doesn't really need oil from the middle east. Europe and Asia do.
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Out of curiosity, do you happen to be American?
Europe sure as heck doesn't *need* the middle east for oil, we have huge oil fields in the north sea, which is quite capable of sustaining us should shit hit the fan. On top of that, we are working very hard on getting rid of our dependency on oil, so no, we don't *need* them.
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I live in Germany. And while we import a lot of oil from Russia and Norway, we are still more dependent on oil from the middle east than the US.
See http://knoema.de/jygmcvb/crude-oil-imports-into-the-eu-27-from-different-countries [knoema.de]
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The US doesn't really need oil from the middle east. Europe and Asia do.
Singapore doesn't.
They are a major oil trading hub in SE Asia. Singapore and Malaysia are swimming in the stuff, so much so Australia gets all of it's petrol from Singapore (which is one of the reasons petrol in Oz is so expensive, Singapore Tapis consistently US$0.20 more expensive than Brent Crude or West Texas Intermediate).
However both Singapore and South Korea are major trading partners with the US.
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2) direct.
3) they think so or at least think they'll learn how to do it(right after the usa tap is their own tap).
4) they're buying jets with sw from usa anyways.
6) they think they can from 3) gain info to control political power and their own budget in their own country.
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I'd go for a mix of 2, 3 and fear of being hit in the head with bombs.
Self-interest (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that we're asking this question on a US forum we can take it as granted that 60% of the readers couldn't find either country on a map and that 90% have zero knowledge of their political and historical position. So about 90% will be ill-equipped to understand where Singapore's and South-Korea's self-interests might lie. But now that the question is asked, we can remedy that.
South Korea, needs the US to help defend themselves against neighbours who would be prepared to wage a full-scale war against them (North Korea). The US are pretty much the only ally of note and value they have, and they know it.
Singapore is surrounded by neighbours that completely dwarf them (Malaysia, Indonesia) only 50 years ago encompassed them (Malaysia), have an Islamic majority (Malaysia) or a virulent Islamic minority (Indonesia) and are debating whether to become a fully Islamic state (Malaysia).
Both countries have brought about an economic boom and depend on security (i.e. the absence of shooting wars), good trade relations with the West, open sea lanes and suchlike.
In both cases a critical part of their national security is having accurate information on what their neighbours are really up to. And in both cases the only serious partner is the US. As a stabilizing factor, a main ally, or a party with whom to trade information that they themselves cannot collect (like e.g. satellite coverage, ocean reconnaissance, comprehensive traffic monitoring etc. etc.).
For countries like that, helping the US eavesdrop on message traffic makes an uncommon lot of sense and is a small price to pay.
Whilst Snowden's relevations may have a beneficial effect on US *domestic* intelligence oversight, having such data-collection arrangements splattered on the front page are detrimental to the collective national security of the US, Singapore, and Korea.
Turn it any way you want, knowing what people are up to gives you a head start in dealing with them, and the US have been a stabilizing factor in Asia for 60 years or so. Eroding this data-collection capability is the price we pay for openness. I'm not certain if the price is too steep, all I'm saying is that it's a very real price we pay. Even if not everybody realises it or wants to hear about it.
Re:Self-interest (Score:5, Informative)
" Singapore is surrounded by neighbours that completely dwarf them (Malaysia, Indonesia) only 50 years ago encompassed them (Malaysia), have an Islamic majority (Malaysia) or a virulent Islamic minority (Indonesia) and are debating whether to become a fully Islamic state (Malaysia). "
Minor correction with Indonesia. Like Malaysia, Indonesia is a Muslim-majority state. In fact, the majority is greater in Indonesia (at least 90% IRC). Malaysia in fact has a rather large, non-Muslim ethnic Chinese minority, which have been discriminated against per official policy.
The problem with the Snowden revelations is likely to come more from Malaysia, which has adopted a more consistently anti-Western stance than Indonesia, which had been more business-like in its dealings with the West.
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I think the "self interest" here is that likely the same Multinational corporations (especially banks) are pulling the strings, and that the rivalry between many nations is more show than the public might think.
The real security threat is the public. Al Qaeda and groups like that are useful tools that show up when someone needs invading. There might be "al Qaeda" people with real anger issues, but they only get reported on when there is "stuff that needs taking."
The real hub-bub here with leaks of all this
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"Nations usually act on a single motivating factor: self-interest. "
I would qualify this, I think it's better phrased as:
Nations usually act on a single motivating factor: perceived self-interest.
What a nation, or at least, the leaders of a nation, perceive to be in their self-interest sometimes isn't. Tony Blair's government was convinced that attacking Iraq was in our self-interest but in reality it wasn't, it cost us billions in cash, it cost us lives, and it ripped our international reputation and pol
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Nations usually act on a single motivating factor: self-interest.
Given that we're asking this question on a US forum we can take it as granted that 60% of the readers couldn't find either country on a map and that 90% have zero knowledge of their political and historical position. So about 90% will be ill-equipped to understand where Singapore's and South-Korea's self-interests might lie. But now that the question is asked, we can remedy that.
...
Wrong forum, most the people here are college educated.
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They get to divert attention from their own crimes and failures. Don't think they don't spy too. And have other problems they wish to go unremarked. The US is a great whipping boy. Blame every domestic problem on the US. Say the US bullied them into it. Works most of the time. Helps that it is true some of the time too.
But that's not the diversion that I find most troubling. Yes, this spying is problematic, but that's not the biggest issue we face. While we're busy swilling down scandalous headli
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7) I'll take "Who has a huge nuclear arsenal and likely a death ray for $500 Alex."
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i.e. Singapore and Hong Kong where both open to the UK and the US was very interested in the flow of regional Russian signals.
The motivation is the same as an Australia, Canada, NZ or other EU country - after generations it becomes 'tech' addictive to support the UK and USA.
Top staff like the trips to the UK or US and seem to get on better with the UK and US than their own govs.
Very fe
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Can you really be that naive?
The answer is that it's in their own self-interest, or what the leaders of the government think it's in their own self-interest. Which is what pretty much every political action boils down to.
Singapore is a tiny nation surrounded by giants (in terms of population). It is totally dependent on water imports from Malaysia, for instance. It's a 5 minute boat ride from tens of millions of impoverished refugees (or invaders, depending on how you look at it). Are you surprised that Sin
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Go home, Zhaan. You're drunk.
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"Our main dissatisfaction concerned some of the practices the United States uses in gathering intelligence information
There where so many hints going back to the 1960's - both in terms of physical world wide hardware, books, magazines, interviews.
The only conspiracy was getting to publishers, cou
Re:let's get some crap out of the way (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah the Poe's Law Troll, one of my favorites. However, I'll oblige.
You're not important enough for anyone to care about your private communications.
Until you are. Then you're fucked, even if it's a bullshit reason, like making anti-NSA political statements on the Internet, while also being an OS developer and having knowledge of unpatched OS exploit vectors, and developing your own cryptographic ciphers. Then you may find your router firmware mysteriously bricked by an exploit gone wrong -- You see, upon suspicion of odd things going on in my network (like 350 MB uploads in the middle of the night when no one was using the net to IP addresses owned by the US government) I cleansed my systems and replaced my router and its firmware, but caused it to still be fingerprinted as stock. That's called a canary, and my canary is dead. When I look at things from an intelligence perspective, It seems like I might be interesting to them, even though I'm a pacifist not a terrorist.
I'm not sure who wants into my systems or for what purpose. However, condoning such actions against citizens is abhorrent. If they showed up at my door step with a warrant I'd shake their hands and give 'em few cases of my homebrewed beer to take home and help them to everything they want to know -- That's what they should be doing. Now, I have to assume it's malicious attackers or enemy state actors. It's really not helpful to be at war with your allies... I don't think we should have to live in fear of whether or not the NSA style spying will be leveraged against citizens, or make the governments of our world illegitimate by violating citizens trusts and rights. Regardless if they are "legally" allowed, it means nothing if your populous abhors the action and despises the state for it. We should not have to wonder; We should know we can trust that our governments are not evil -- We should be able to prove it. We shouldn't allow them to do anything we don't know about. In the NSA's case they lie to their overseers. The threat such actions pose to national integrity and stability is far too a high a price to pay. The risk is too damn high.
I, for one, think it's hot that the NSA sees my sexts.
When the government retroactively declares your "sexts" to be offensive and illegal material they probably won't arrest you for it -- Unless they decide that they don't like you for some other reason. This is how police states operate. [youtube.com] Anything you say or do can and will be used against you. They will not have the obligation to use the information they have to exonerate you. In fact, once they "like you" for a crime the states will employ the practice of Parallel Construction. [wikipedia.org] And no matter how sexy, your sexting habits may be just the ticket to nail you for something else. In other words: We shouldn't help them fuck you. They should have to work for the taxes we pay.
If the NSA didn't do this, we'd already be dead.
Everybody already knew the NSA does this, so it doesn't matter.
This line of reasoning is pure bullshit. We suspected, but we didn't have evidence, and given that Habeas Corpus is now eliminated upon mere accusation of threat it does matter more than ever before. Those who love their country are not so content to have it turned into the same things their soldiers fight against. The greatest risk is that the honorable will STOP fighting for those who are seen as dishonorable when countries become like the enemies the soldiers were trained to despise. The NSA actions, and the spying actions like them by countries world wide are threats to national security and national sovereignty of all the world's peoples.
Finally, the terrorist threat is pathetic, though they say it's nothing to sneeze at the flu kills six times more Ameri [cdc.gov]
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+10 insightful (Score:2)
Until you are. Then you're fucked, even if it's a bullshit reason, like making anti-NSA political statements on the Internet, while also being an OS developer and having knowledge of unpatched OS exploit vectors, and developing your own cryptographic ciphers. Then you may find your router firmware mysteriously bricked by an exploit gone wrong -- You see, upon suspicion of odd things going on in my network (like 350 MB uploads in the middle of the night when no one was using the net to IP addresses owned by the US government) I cleansed my systems and replaced my router and its firmware, but caused it to still be fingerprinted as stock. That's called a canary, and my canary is dead.
The NSA prefers routers, it seems. I wish there were more focus on security in this area, but its 'fast wireless gaming multimedia' that gets all the attention these days. One consolation is that having a secure OS and network stack can greatly reduce the impact of a compromised router.
Drop an Anchor (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe "Dropping Anchor" is code for wire tapping without permission. The old "a boat dropped anchor on the cable" so the internet is a trickle in Australia for 3 days trick.
"I'm just going to go drop an anchor on this call"
"We were dropped anchor off the coast of China last week"
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Maybe "Dropping Anchor" is code for wire tapping without permission. The old "a boat dropped anchor on the cable" so the internet is a trickle in Australia for 3 months trick.
Fixed that for you, the last time someone accidentally dropped an anchor on the SEA-ME-WE 3 cable between Indonesia and Australia it took months to get it fixed.
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Generations of top cleared staff got the keys to their countries telco networks to help allies...
There was always feel good feedback to the local teams or a perfect cover story for the split/hardware/sites/code.
Who do you report to in "your" part of the world about a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A [wikipedia.org] ?
Top staff would be in on the cover, lower ranking staff would not have the clearance and trust tha
wait a second! (Score:5, Interesting)
that makes me ponder, were these cuts accidental or red herrings?
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/06/georgian-woman-cuts-web-access [theguardian.com]
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=4267160 [go.com]
http://tribune.com.pk/story/527148/undersea-internet-cable-cut-effects-50-of-pakistans-traffic/ [tribune.com.pk]
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/mar/28/damaged-undersea-cable-internet-disruption [theguardian.com]
i'm aware you can tap fiber without disrupting it but it's underwater which seems difficult to start with and it doesn't mean all the cuts were by the NSA. (since apparently everyone is spy happy)
everything is suspicious now :((((
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Incidentally they're also reporting it to Dice.com
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everything is suspicious now :((((
All data should be encrypted from now on.
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Yea... I've got an even better one for you. Remember when there was that big scandal about Google Street View cars getting caught "accidentally" wardriving [latimes.com] and everyone couldn't believe they could have done such a thing on accident?
I had almost forgot about it too.
Re:wait a second! (Score:4, Interesting)
What's to say they didn't really cut the undersea cable? How about they cut it on nice-and-cosy dry land, but told you it was actually an undersea problem?
Or... how about they wanted to cut the cable on dry land, but couldn't because it would disrupt everyone using it. Instead, they called up their pals in the Navy and asked them to rent a ship and drop anchor on the cable. At the same time, they cut the cable on dry land, added in their splitters and then let the cable company repair the under-sea problem. When the cable company lit the cable up again, they recalibrated it for the repair to the undersea cut, and the split cut, but never knew about the split cut.
Or... how about they just got into the cable companies ahead of time and tapped it right there, and actually the anchor drops were real accidents?
Either way, the cables got tapped, and we got screwed over.
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This conspiracy theory came up along time ago after a few cables were cut off the coast of Egypt some years back. People were saying it must be a conspiracy because it's so impossible that 2 undersea cables could be cut in such a short time span.
At the time I looked into it and found a link to a fairly objective organisation which I frankly can't remember who published some information and stats on the issue. I think it may well have been the IMO - the International Maritime Organisation that all UN states
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I work in Telecom, fiber cuts happen every day on major networks. Backhoes and rats cut underground fiber, trucks and squirrels cut aerial fiber. It would easy to put a splitter in place, but hard for it to stay in place without someone noticing. I think in most of this tapping the carrier is complicit.
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This certainly helps explain why the U.S. Navy decommissioned NR-1 [wikipedia.org] in 2008. While ostensibly it was for deep sea research and salvage operations (e.g.
undersea cables cut? remember? (Score:2)
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Japan won't cooperate with the American NSA? (Score:3)
2. Anime
3. Hentai
4. No NSA
Time to move to Japan!
What are friends for? (Score:1)
And Japan? Need we remind them what happened the last time they opposed the Good ol' USA? It would be best for everybody if 'all the ships sailed in the same direction'.
New cyber axis (Score:2)
Having so much NSA associated countries could be a hint of a new world order appearing, no more first/second/third world but the ones with the USA in this and the rest attacked ( puttng backdoors in their networks [www.nrc.nl] for future action, causing unrest in population using social networks, and of course, stripping all their populations from a basic human right) by them sometimes without noticing that. So far the confirmed list of the NSA associated countries include UK, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Sou
The reasons many countries helped NSA (Score:3, Interesting)
As more and more of the leaks have been revealed, more and more countries are being linked to the Global NSA Franchise.
Those countries don't do stuffs for nothing - and the fact that so many countries have helped doing all the dirty works for NSA means that, in return, USA did something else for them.
But what can the government of the United States do to return the favor ?
Money ?
Nope. USA is bankrupt.
Fame ?
Nope. Everybody knows how popular it would be to be included in the "Uncle Sam Lapdog" list.
Power ? Lo
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The USA can and does "lend" itself and friends trillions of US dollars out of thin air. Oil and plenty of other stuff is sold in US dollars.
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And if you dare pondering to sell your oil for anything but Dollars ... well, see Saddam.
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The CIA in particular...with what they've thrown at at&t(R) and Karzai, they never seem to be bankrupt.
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You mean like any government bond? Guess what currency Eurobonds are paid in.
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Am I the only one ?
Who finds this annoying ?
Should demonstratives be separated by paragraphs ?
Does every single sentence justify a new paragraph ?
Does text look more intelligent if it takes up more space ?
Do spaces belong before question marks ?
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Most of us just don't give a damn. If you don't like to read creative writing, just shut your computer off, stop watching television, and don't go out. You can train the members of your family to only write in the ways that you approve of. Obsessive compulsives shouldn't be forced to deal with the rest of us assholes. Just go into your cave, and ignore us. It's better for everyone that way.
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E. E. Cummings need not apply for the role as an editor.
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Every
Sentence
Seems
To
Get
Its
Own
Paragraph.
(And "Nasa" has apparantly become a word, mumble grumble...)
Just print more of 'em (Score:2)
"Money ? Nope. USA is bankrupt."
When you're a country, being bankrupt doesn't mean you don't have a money. You can always "print" more. Or maybe the US should start paying their snoops in Bitcoins?
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People don't seem to notice that EVERY country is running out of money and yet, there are very, very rich people offshore. We don't actually know how rich some people are -- but consider that all the banks that LOST MONEY, had a bundle as they were ripping off a lot of mortgage lenders for years, and getting high rates of return for years and then suddenly it went "poof" to someone, somewhere...
Here in the USA, the government has no money to solve problems, but they've been able to fund "economic easing" fo
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Money is still a powerful reason. No money for country, but yes money for individual people in key places. If you can just say "let there be money" and trillons appear out from thin air, money is no problem for you, and is a great motivator for those people.
Also, being into the snooping business for years ensures that whoever is ethical enough to refuse money can probably be blackmailed with ease, and if is not that person could be someone over them (going up enough you always find people with less ethics,
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