Stop using US services?! That's where I started but as of today, I'd go even further:
* Americans no longer welcome in Europe; you think you can spy on us, torture people, kill innocents, trample over longstanding diplomatic conventions to ground a president of a country, put the full might of your police state to hunt down your own freedom fighters, and then come here and have a good time or do business? Think again. US citizens not welcome here anymore!!! You can do what you want in your country, but don't come here if you don't respect our way of life and our privacy.
* Let's kick the Brits out of the EU (they don't seem to be too happy in there anyway); they are basically just a foothold for the American fascists in the EU and do their bidding
* Let's not stop at moving our own email and social accounts to European providers. Refuse to accept emails coming from gmail, yahoo etc. domains! Send automatic replies that explain why and suggesting ways what is acceptable.
The point is: The US electorate and businesses are either pro surveilling the whole world, even their own allies, or they are lethargic and indifferent. If the former, we should draw the consequence and stop having contact and exchanges with them. If the latter, we should increase the cost of doing nothing. Hurt them the only way we, as citizens of the world without a voice in the American police state, can hurt them: In their pocket and in their options to travel and have fun. America is always so happy lecturing the world about democracy. Well then, now you can show us which way the wind really blows in America and its relation with the world.
One approach that may work that is less disruptive is to require a legally mandated warning on all communications that pass through US and UK servers, like "This message passed through US and UK servers via company XXX here in the EU. It may be subject to collection by the NSA and CIA. Contact this company to request routing through EU only servers."
Something like this is not unreasonable. After all we are already putting warning labels on things that are a threat to safety and health. What is happening is a threat to personal freedom and political sovereignty.
The only issue with that is being able to prove said item didn't go through NSA/CIA, or rather, that said server (no matter where it is) isn't somehow directing traffic in some form to the NSA/CIA. This is basically the issue I see for Americans, too. We can petition for abuses to be stopped but we can't prove our possible success. PRISM may be out of the bag but I'd guess most developed countries digitally spy on their citizens in some form.
Better yet, put it on every single piece of communication that isn't encrypted end-to-end. It would get people to learn to encrypt things just to eliminate that warning label.
Snowden stated that the only thing that stops the NSA from doing something is policy, not legality.
This call by the German minister is exactly the type of thing that should galvanize the US Internet giants to put the full weight of their lobby (http://internetassociation.org/) behind policy reform (if they haven't already).
You need the votes of the People to get elected, but once you're in office the Lobbyists' influence overshadows the People's and members are encouraged to "lean to the green."
The NRA lobby flexed its muscle and secured the 2nd for the time being. It's time for the Internet lobby to flex its muscle to secure the 4th.
The People have a role too -- when the People are aligned behind a great lobbying power, the force of weight is too powerful to ignore.
A SOPA-like blackout and petition would send a strong signal.
Do you want to kick Germany out, too? Its several intelligence services have a history of spying on their own citizens and also on other European countries.
How about Italy? Large domestic spying program, manipulation of the press, forged documents that helped convince the US to invade Iraq, spying on other EU countries.
How can we take full responsibility for the Evo Morales incident? Do Europeans bear no responsibility for allowing their governments to be US lapdogs? As a US citizen I have to bear the responsibility both for my country and your inability to elect a government with a backbone?
Calling Americans fascists goes too far because a lot of us don't support these programs, but calling everyone that supports these mass surveillance NSA programs fascists is not unreasonable, after all the policy of "all foreigners are fair game" certainly meets the criteria of "belief in the supremacy of one national or ethnic group, a contempt for democracy, an insistence on obedience to a powerful leader" (from the OED). If that doesn't describe the arguments made by USG politicians in defense of these programs, then I don't know what does. It's fascism an an international level instead of an intranational level.
Consider this... how would you feel if he'd said the actions of the Israeli government in regards to their treatment of Palestinians were unconscionable and so all Jews should be barred from Europe? How right was it when the US decided that Pearl Harbor was such an outrage that it might be a good idea to just lock up all the American Japanese for a while?
Answering fascism with a greater fascism is never a viable solution. As much as Europeans want (and justifiably so) to hate the US government for their actions, irrespective of the complicity of their own governments and, by extension, own citizens, it would be more productive and more reflective of reality to realize that many Americans actually agree with them.
I'm a zionist, and a jew. And I think that hating zionism, and hating Israel is hating the jews. Hating the policies of an individual Israeli government is politics. I can tell the difference.
Interestingly, I'm also a [naturalised] american living in the UK. I wrote to my MP the last time there was public debate about electronic surveillance and I voted against the last government because they were so consistently in favour of more spying with less oversight. But feel free to hate me too. Perhaps I'm the wrong kind of jewish, american, resident of Britain.
If you're a Zionist, then I disagree with you in the strongest possible terms, because you are a Zionist, not because you are a Jew. I suppose I misrepresented what I meant by saying 'I hate Israel'. What I meant was I hate Israel in its current form (i.e, a rapidly expanding apartheid state).
I guess I could pull the cop out 'but I have some Jewish friends!' but I won't, you'll just have to believe that me that I hate Zionism rather than Judaism.
It's such an effed-up situation that the terms have specific, harmful, meanings. In the same sense that "african-american" refers to black people and not white, arabic, or other races, zionism has turned into a word that means "Israelis who abuse Palestinians."
It's tough enough explaining the current and historical pressures that it becomes a minefield of terminology. Zionist/anti-zionist/anti-semitic/etc. are all loaded terms that now encourage emotion over logic.
I'm not on your case, I'm feeling your pain in terms of having to use two posts and 50 words where one or two should suffice to keep people from going ballistic.
I don't want to open that particular can of worms up inside this current can of worms, though. I was just using it as an example of how irrational "expelling all Americans from Europe" seemed to me.
I honestly don't have any knowledge about the Middle East to comment on this, but I think I do remember that there was a tiny difference w.r.t. your Pearl Harbor reference: First, those locked up were US citizens (of Japanese descent); and second, Japan was not a democracy, i.e. the people there had no say and, hence, no responsibility. For the record: I get that the American political system is, uhm, messed up. But doing nothing is not an option anymore. This goes too far.
Calling the reactions of the rest of the world 'quivering and faltering' seems to absolve them of any responsibility for themselves, as if it's impossible for anyone to be an ally of the US government, or at least not an enemy, unless there's blackmail or coercion involved. Other countries are not being terrified into submission, so much as they're complicit and culpable in their own way, using this situation to further their own political ends.
The specifics of your argument are a little off, but let me correct your question.
"Consider this... how would you feel if he'd said the actions of the Israeli government in regards to their treatment of Palestinians were unconscionable and so all citizens of Israel should be barred from Europe?"
(Keep in mind that you cannot enter the UAE and some other Arab countries on an Israeli passport.)
I admit that would be a more accurate way to frame it, I probably should have been a bit more precise. Although doing so wouldn't really illustrate how irrational and offensive I found the idea of unilaterally barring Americans from Europe (which I assume means forcibly removing any already living and working there), and banning all American network traffic. It's bigotry plain and simple.
I'm not arguing we're entitled to travel to Europe. But I also don't see the logic in banning Americans wholesale. This is why it seems like bigotry to me. If this were in effect and I got on a plane to go some EU nation, what have I done that makes me a direct threat to that country's population? Is it assumed that I'm going to go around stealing people's mail and shooting people in the streets? How am I, personally, a greater threat to a European citizen's freedom than their own government, or even the government next door? HSO's comment pretty clearly (at least to me) seemed to presume malice on the part of Americans in general:
you think you can spy on us, torture people, kill innocents, trample over longstanding diplomatic conventions to ground a president of a country, put the full might of your police state to hunt down your own freedom fighters, and then come here and have a good time or do business?
See, i've never spied on anyone, tortured anyone, or killed anyone and I couldn't care less about Europe's secrets. Yet as far as HSO seems to be concerned, I'm best kept off the streets of innocent and civilized Europe because of my bloodthirsty and fascist nature. How would this be anything other than a bigoted policy? Particularly since other "Europeans" would apparently get a free pass in regards to anything their own governments happen to have done?
> But I also don't see the logic in banning Americans wholesale.
Let me quote myself from above, perhaps it becomes clearer in isolation: "The point is: The US electorate and businesses are either pro surveilling the whole world, even their own allies, or they are lethargic and indifferent. If the former, we should draw the consequence and stop having contact and exchanges with them. If the latter, we should increase the cost of doing nothing."
(My guess, by the way, is on "lethargic and indifferent".)
> If this were in effect and I got on a plane to go some EU nation, what have I done that makes me a direct threat to that country's population? Is it assumed that I'm going to go around stealing people's mail and shooting people in the streets? How am I, personally, a greater threat to a European citizen's freedom than their own government, or even the government next door?
Now this just illustrates beautifully my point! Exactly this is the question I am asking myself: Why are you (i.e. your government) treating me as an enemy? Reading my emails? Listening to my phone calls? Who knows what else? And LOGGING IT for the future?! what have I done that makes me a direct threat to the US population? [...] See, i've never spied on anyone, tortured anyone, or killed anyone and I couldn't care less about US secrets.
My guess, by the way, is on "lethargic and indifferent"
Indifferent, probably. So I'd suggest this... focus on the companies and not the people. Because the American government doesn't listen to the voters, but it most certainly will listen to a multinational corporation willing to pull a billion dollars out of a Congressman's district because they no longer trust or are able to do business with the United States. Europeans should get out and protest around wherever the Google offices are in their country. Raise (a reasonable and non-lethal amount of) hell whenever the American president or some dignitary shows up. European governments can annoy us with regulations. There are a hundred different things that Europeans and their governments could be doing but aren't, that would get the point across.
> i've never spied on anyone, tortured anyone, or killed anyone
You voted for a government that spied, tortured and killed people for you. Note that it doesn’t matter whether you voted for the current president or not, neither does it matter whether you’re even registered as a voter. What does matter is that you are allowed to vote (as a US citizen, I presume) and hence bear full responsibility for the actions of your government[0]. Which routinely spies on and at least tortures Europeans.
> Particularly since other "Europeans" would apparently get a free pass in regards to anything their own governments happen to have done?
I do feel solidarity towards other members of the EU, being the naive pan-European that I feel like being, and do not mind accepting some flaws in return for them accepting mine. The difference is that there is some common government/council and even a common and generally accepted court of law which can resolve differences, whereas there is no such thing for ‘divergencies’ with neither the USG, nor the people of the US.
[0] The argument goes roughly like this: If we assume you to only bear responsibility if you are part of this government, someone can elect a fascist leader and avoid any responsibility. If we assume you to only be responsible if you voted for the current government, we violate the secrecy of the vote. If we assume you to only be responsible if you voted at all (something that is often publicly known), then we offer you yet another get-out-of-jail-free card, furthermore, you could have voted against the current incumbent and hence possibly change the outcome of the election. Hence established that everyone allowed to vote is responsible for the actions of the government, we can then conclude that you bear full responsibility for said actions (at the very least towards third-country citizens, I don’t care how you manage that internally) by the simple fact that people don’t get discounts if they commit crimes with their friends.
You voted for a government that spied, tortured and killed people for you.
No, I voted for a government that would bring equity to the financial system and nationalize health insurance, create a jobs program, pull us out of Iraq and Afghanistan and close Guantanamo. I got a government that spies, tortures and kills for me, whether I liked it or not.
You are right, I was/am very angry. I should clarify that I'm referring to the US government and, more specifically, to their "justice" and security apparatus.
There's no need for this. The US government purportedly exists to serve its people. What you proposed, while it may seem extreme, is very much what the US government (and others) proposes when they agree to sanctions against various roque states.
The US government is not divorced from the population. It is composed of millions of Americans (and others) who are working to support its various services and programs. Much of the behavior seen recently (especially the NSA/Snowden action) is very understandable if you view it through the lens of someone trying to save their job. The government's actions are the result of these millions of people moving in various directions, mildly shifted with each administration.
It's not feasible to think that an outside agent can directly change the way the US government acts. However, as has been demonstrated in the worst way, asymmetrical warfare will change the way the citizens think. Mass boycotts and sanctions would have an effect just as terrorist attacks have.
If the citizens of the US lose jobs, income, heck, blockbuster movies because the international market dries up, they will change the way they act.
You can't guess how, unfortunately. The largest response will be anger at the rest of the world, which could lead to a Weimar Republic situation.
As a US citizen, I'm embarrassed by my government. We had a brief period of time in Obama's first administration when I didn't feel like an apologist or an impotent victim of the tyranny of democracy.
A citizen's duty is to work to establish leadership that reflects his or her values. We use a lot of excuses (the USA is too big, one vote doesn't count, we're a representative republic, etc.) but at the end of the day, if someone is Proud to be an American™, then they must take responsibility for its excesses as well.
If the citizens of the US lose jobs, income, heck, blockbuster movies because the international market dries up, they will change the way they act.
You can't guess how, unfortunately. The largest response will be anger at the rest of the world, which could lead to a Weimar Republic situation.
I think that's a real danger. From my perspective, most everything in the US is kinda right of center, but the last thing I would want to contribute anything to is to empower the hard right elements in it.
Collective punishment just doesn't sit right with me.. I think it tends to hit the wrong people and leave the intended targets mostly unaffected. I mean, US citizens who travel, to see the world and learn about it, and meet people and learn about them, are exactly the ones that should be welcomed and encouraged, no? And if the US economy takes a hit across the board of the high-tech sector, it would also mostly hurt the "small fish", I'm sure. Whatever would make Facebook or Google loose even 1% would also completely shutter a lot of mom and pop shops. (not that people working at Facebook and Google wouldn't also loose jobs, and it would NOT be the people responsible for anything Google or Facebook got punished for)
Not that I don't find your attidude impressive, or that you don't have a point. If more would feel so directly responsible for what is done in their name, we wouldn't be here talking about this. So ignore what I say when it comes to your attitude, I just want to explain why I won't be part of putting all Americans into one bag and hitting it.
If the rest of the world starts to punish anything American, starts judging people and companies by region code instead of by what they're doing or saying, then it's just "they hate us for being American" for a lot of people, and downhill from there. We've been there quite recently.. as someone who did a lot of stupid battle with Bush followers, that stuff is burned into my retina forever.
Generally speaking, you guys have people in your country you could use help with, or at least moral support for, instead of being shunned for them. This can be said about any country, but also about the US. So have a nice 4th of July, and enjoy it.
There is this line from "The Wire" that the character played by Steve Earle says to the heroin junkie: "Sorry Bubs... shame ain't worth as much as you think. Let it go." And he's talking about personal shame, not even on behalf of others. If you're embarrassed, use that, and shout from the rooftops; but don't let it actually get inside you. The ones who should be embarrassed aren't, yet the ones who should keep their chins up are feeling down? Nah!
I meant the USG when I said "fascists". It would be obviously stupid to call every American citizen a fascist but the USG fits the term, I have to say, quite well. To think that I would have donated to the Obama campaign in 2008 had I had money back then, or that Obama received the Nobel peace prize!!! In a better world, the committee would demand the prize back and give it to Snowden, Drake, Manning et al. -- that would be one powerful statement!
The Peace Prize was ludicrous, since the only thing he remotely did to deserve it was not to be named George Bush. I would dearly love for it to be recalled.
In terms of fascism, by the way, there was a list of diagnostic points for fascism that circulated a few years ago - the US meets them all, albeit in embryonic form. We're definitely in a stage of protofascism, if you will.
I love seeing this call to avoid US services. Americans don't really start noticing anything until business is threatened or the cable TV goes out; if this call to arms actually has any measurable effect it will be a very positive move indeed.
To go even further, there could be communities of people who do things for themselves and with themselves. I'm not talking Amish here but something along the lines of avoiding services that collect data (which basically means ones that are non-digital), as crazy as it sounds. Short of something drastic, I don't see anyone winning this war against being spied upon, especially since we're just going to become more and more digitally-inclined. The spying becomes so much harder if the info that'd have to be passed along was non-digital, though I suppose strong encryption also theoretically solves the same problem (that is, if the gov't isn't using quantum decryption).
Think: Meetup.com, something might be planned online but it takes place in the physical world. Basically, it'd mean replicating things like this where there's an increase in human-to-human contact. I'm just throwing out an idea, but there's got to be ways to combat the spying or at least make it all based only on metadata rather than the actual data. I don't believe the spying only covers metadata anyways.
It is possible in Arizona to create "charter towns" that can largely override state law with their established charter. As a thought experiment I have toyed around with the idea of a town with a charter based on radical transparency in government and an assumption of a right to privacy.
Why not just declare war? After all, the US and Britain are responsible for all that is bad in the world, and all of Europe other than the UK are innocent.
There is no internal spying or injustice, racism, or political or economic corruption in any of these states, and their economic policies only foster creativity and happiness. Governments in the EU are free of corporate influence, and vice versa. The world would truly be able to step into the 21st Century if only we acknowledged that it's the US that is holding it back.
As an Austrian I can assure you that people here would not really bother :) Personally I would, mainly for reasons like easier Cross-borders-Sales and employment.
Well, it's stupid anyway. I know there are problems with the Union and I know there are design flaws with the monetary union, but jeez - the Union itself is the smartest thing ever done in Europe and that is a high bar indeed. Talking about kicking countries out is just a step back towards the days of "let's just shoot everybody".
i promise you one thing: eu soil isn't really better. they exchange (or at least want to and i don't see those fascists not doing it) air passenger data with foreign countries without your or my consent.
Let's kick the Brits out of the EU (they don't seem to be too happy in there anyway); they are basically just a foothold for the American fascists in the EU and do their bidding
Brit here (well half German so you will get the irony of this comment).
You're confusing the British people with the government. We the people are not represented by our government, media or press.
I worked for 12 month in the UK and I met a lot of people that absolutely hated everything about Europe, the EU or the Euro. And this was before the crisis.
I think it depends a lot on the age and the amount of consumption of Murdoch media per day.
You are not excused from taking responsibility for your government, which is formed on the basis of the support of its people. You are responsible for your British government, citizen.
I certainly am excused when we don't have proportional voting, coalitions are used to keep the major parties in power and I don't vote anyway because I do not wish to be responsible for what the government do which is never what I have voted for. No UK party had ever kept to their manifesto - they all serve the same masters: corporations and banks.
Europe exports more to the US then the Europe imports from the US. Basically there is a trade imbalance of roughly $100 billion dollars (the US makes up 17.3% of EU exports). You think the EU is a mess now? Take out the $100 billion dollars from the EU economy...then see what happens.
It's not about the _People_ of USA or Europe. So let's not become hostile against each other. (It's almost _never_ about the _people_ between nations. It's _governments_ that fuck up things for the people.)
It's about a rotten system, which unfortunately is the US government today. (It's not even about Obama, this is way above people like him.)
>It's not about the _People_ of USA or Europe. So let's not become hostile against each other.
It is about the people. We call this a "democracy" (I know, it's a republic), yet as a whole we fail to engage our government meaningfully. That makes it the peoples' fault.
We tolerate this crap in the US because as a whole we suffer no visible consequence from it. Most US citizens remain blissfully unaware. Many of those who are aware don't care because it doesn't affect them in any way they can measure, and/or because they think it makes them safer. If we as a whole suffer in some measurable way, especially of those of us who are wealthy enough to travel are rudely made aware of our own rudeness and inconsideration for others, maybe then more of us will actively oppose this crap.
I wouldn't see the revocation of visa-less travel for US citizens in Europe as hostility, or as an unreasonable response to US gov't aggression in the form of our unilaterally spying on everyone.
The German Democratic Republic called itself a democracy. Its president Walter Ulbricht at one occasion even said "It must look like democracy, but we must keep control in our hands".
We also merely call outselves a democracy, but in prectice we arent one. The game, the rules of which we didnt write, cant change and still have to abide by, is engineered to, like the GDR, merely give the people a semblance of democracy to keep em busy and calm. We wouldnt go voting for nothing, so it has to be a democracy, otherwise we wouldnt do it, right? Right. In practice, it is not a democracy, but a prisoners dilemma on a country level. In pure theory, we could win the game but only if we achieved levels of organisation and cooperation which in practice are near impossible to achieve. And in this game, we woud actualy play _against_ our politicians, not with them.
I wouldn't see the revocation of visa-less travel for US citizens in Europe as hostility
When Austria elected a neofascist Prime Minister (Jörg Haider), do you think it would have been justified to expel Austria from Schengen and the U.S. visa-waiver program? Do you think doing so would have been seen as a hostile move? After all, Austria is a democracy, so why not sanction the Austrian people for their decisions?
> It is about the people. We call this a "democracy".
What I meant to say is this:
It's not that Americans hate Europeans or vice versa or that Muslims hate Americans or Muslims hate Europeans. We are human beings that share the pains of this existance. We _all_ want to live together in peace - all of us.
Now, when you are part of those that _know_ more (better and fully transparent media available, skill of critical thinking acquired in school), it means that you, as an individual, have more _responsibility_ to change things for the better.
And I believe this is the case with HN readers (the majority of the general public in the US is probably not part of this priviledged group). So go out and inform your peers about what they can do to advance democracy on this planet.
>It's not that Americans hate Europeans or vice versa or that Muslims hate Americans or Muslims hate Europeans. We are human beings that share the pains of this existance. We _all_ want to live together in peace - all of us.
I was born in the US. I've lived in North America, Europe, and Asia. I agree absolutely.
>Now, when you are part of those that _know_ more (better and fully transparent media available, skill of critical thinking acquired in school), it means that you, as an individual, have more _responsibility_ to change things for the better.
IMO, my generation has grown up with and grown accustomed to a kind of powerlessness with respect to gov't policy. Demographics heavily favor the Baby Boomer generation in most parts of the country. The psychology of living for twenty years in a "democracy" where gov't policy has to be approved by our parents, or else it will fail, seems to have produced a lot of apathetic people in my cohort. That's my excuse anyway. Nevertheless, without some meaningful feedback concerning our gov't's, or some galvanizing event, I don't see much chance for progress on this front.
I don't understand your comment. I'm an American. What I said is that I wish some country(ies) would ban Americans from unrestricted travel. What I wish is that Americans become conscious of the behavior of our government both at home and abroad. Without some corrective feedback, I doubt we'll do anything other than maintain our collective ignorance/apathy.
> We _all_ want to live together in peace - all of us.
Americans want to live in peace, but we want to be in charge, and we don't like the idea of other countries telling us we can't do things. Even cooperating with other countries is perceived as a sign of weakness, and capitulating to other countries telling us that we can't do something we were planning on doing would be political suicide. If you want to get the U.S. electorate solidly behind a policy they were otherwise indifferent about, tell them France is opposed to us doing it...
It's a sad fact for me, but I use American tourists as my personal lightning rods when I'm overseas. Loud, wealthy and obvious are the type its handy to have around. Despite being a hair under 2 metres with red hair, the trouble goes to the American tourists when they are nearby. Pickpocketing, nagging sales people, police, security etc are far more likely to go for the American with 2 big cameras and flash clothes. I firmly believe that my travels have been made easier by the poor treatment of Americans that travel.
However, as an american I can agree with the sentiment of a foreign citizen that we are the only ones who can effect change in our own government, centrally not him... unless he encourages us to be less complacent by restricting what we can do in his country.
I welcome this myself because I have a hard time raising interest in doing anything even amongst my friends. I can't even get people to follow a few easy steps to secure their email, much less march on the NSA.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
"all men" is not ambiguous. It didn't say all Americans.
Uh, our people have no problem with us spying on the rest of the world. The U.S. electorate is solidly in favor of maintaining American hegemony in the world, by nearly any means necessary. We're mostly indifferent to Europeans as people, although we know they're supposed to theoretically be our allies (but c.f. all the europeans who weren't willing to go with us into Iraq). This is democracy at work.
Look at the last U.S. president that tried to present a softer face to the world: Jimmie Carter. Most people hate Carter here in the U.S., on both sides of the aisle.
Mainstream America is ok with the spying, lying, indefinite detention, and assassinations (even of their own underage citizens if they have funny sounding names). And, those who dont agree, well, we're still tax payers.
It is about the people, and nothing else. No government ever derived its powers without the consent - through apathy or direct support - of its peoples. Every other government was overthrown.
So, I concur with the OP: it is time for the American people to start feeling the pressure from those of us in the world who expect better from them. Before its too late.
Yep. If the government represented the will of its people, we'd have sensible gun control and readily available contraception. The government hasn't represented us for a long time.
Feel free to put your money where you mouth is, but of course you won't because you will not convince your government to commit suicide, self preservation is a hell of a drug.
At work we've already had this discussion regarding the location of the web apps we use. Not because we manage "highly sensible" data, but because this entire situation bothers us at many levels.
Although not 100% decided, the "biggest" change we are planning is to move all of our Google Apps email/server to a private mail server located here in Europe + encryption for all. This is a relatively easy transition. A tougher change is finding (if it exists) a Box alternative.
Spam filtering is also something that Gmail does pretty well. If you've got a public email address that's 'out there', a serious spam solution is pretty important.
I've been not very happy with Gmail's spam filtering, though I admit it's hard to do right. But its false positives were the main reason I moved away from it. The last straw was when they spam-filtered an email from my landlord because it contained some Danish text in it (I live in Denmark!). I eventually found it in my Spam folder (which I thereafter had to check regularly) with the explanation that it was filtered because "It's written in a different language than your messages typically use."
I regularly get emails in both Italian and English and it seems to get things right most of the time. And it filters out a ton of spam - I probably get at least 20 an hour, so without a good filter, I'd be "up a creek".
Unless of course you consider multiple daily SEO spams, "spam". Because GMail doesn't filter those at all. Even emails that are worded exactly the same but sent from a different source GMail address.
The answer to spam is to charge a nominal fee for each e-mail, whether in digital currency (Bitcoin, Ripple) or proof-of-work (SHA, Bcrypt, etc.).
Bitmessage integrates the latter (proof-of-work) and is working nicely at this stage, although I believe it may have some structural issues that will make scaling it up to many thousands of nodes difficult.
Yeah, the Anglosphere (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK, and the US) has several exclusive treaties and especially strong relationships that would no doubt take precedence over the EU. They already share quite a bit of signals intelligence, e.g. ECHELON. And most of it has been ongoing for decades.
For example, the agreement that created Five Eyes:
All major gov'ts intercept each other's traffic and do espionage (industrial or intelligence) on each other. It's a kind of gentleman's agreement. We know you spy on us, you know we spy on you, but let's pretend we don't, publicly, and if something becomes public (one of us is careless), act outraged and protest. (the Lady doeth protest too much)
Possibly a bit of commercial opportunism as well. Regardless of whether it improves security, it would be in Germany's economic interests for more Europeans to use Europe-based webservices rather than U.S.-based ones.
Just like Captain Renault in Casablanca - though when I was running a dark aws server (bare ip no domain assigned) for my employer it was funny that all the attacks came via Chinese/Russian IP ranges.
>All major gov'ts intercept each other's traffic and do espionage (industrial or intelligence) on each other. It's a kind of gentleman's agreement.
1) What about the no-major gov'ts? Are those OK to be spied on? Like half of Europe's population and most of the rest of the world?
2) And, no, that "all major gov'ts intercept each other's traffic and do espionage" paints a BS naive picture. As if, say, Austria is in the same level with the US on this.
No major country does this at the level the US does or with equal resources. For one, the rest of the "major gov'ts" don't "own" the internet, from ICANN to all the major players (Google, FB, Apple, MS, Amazon). Not to mention most (all?) credit card companies are also American.
And even if they did, they would not know what to do with it. They don't have the diplomatic upper hand or the major interests in almost every field the US has.
If you think the rather bovine electorate of any of our great western nations will either remember or figure out why they should give a crap... well you have a lot more faith in humanity than I have left.
The rather bovine electorate of the UK prefers to leave the apparently over-regulating, wasteful and generally evil EU, which would then would make it far easier to impose restrictions on UK services.
Given that the UK already contributes nearly nothing to the EU budget and economy (apart from an oversized banking sector in no small part responsible for the current financial crisis), the remaining countries will not seriously resist the UK leaving.
But we now see how the fall out from this scandal will affect us. When I build my next API or service will people around the globe use it? Or will they be skeptical and decide to roll their own or go with an offshore competitor? Very irritating.
I believe this may be very helpful. If enough Europeans stop / limit using Google services, then Google's stock price on Wall Street will see the consequences.
Google has powerful lobbyists on Capitol Hill, and they will use their influence to change the playing field such that they either don't have to cooperate as much, or can be more transparent about the cooperation. Either option, or both, would help polish the tarnish on Google's reputation due to this.
Perhaps this is wishful thinking ... kinda like believing Europeans, Asians, etc will build their own Google-replacement ... but it's small a reason for hope, all the same.
It's not just Google. It's anything running Apple OSes (iPhones/iPads), Microsoft OSes, Google OSes (Android!), gmail users, AWS, any company _hosted_ on AWS, but, most importantly, any US company built _in the future_.
We've now learned that any US-based company can be secretly forced to spy on their users at the behest of the military. And then in a stroke of genius, Obama went on tv to explain that it's not cause for alarm because it only targets foreigners.
Because we have FISA, because we have secret courts, because we have PATRIOT NSLs, because we have gag orders, every single American internet company now has a permanent credibility problem in the global market.
I'd like Obama to explain why any business anywhere has any reason to trust US could services now. Right, they don't. If they're smart they stay the hell away from any US servers.
It's a well known fact that the NSA/CIA are not just hunting for terrorists. Their normal day to day agenda is industrial espionage as well.
I guess spider oak is still ok thanks to client side encryption. Other than that - no thanks.
Much of your offshore traffic may well pass through US-Europe trunks anyway, so any web service will find it difficult or impossible to avoid this problem.
Yes, but as someone who makes IT decisions for an organization outside the US, it's still a factor.
When evaluating services, one factor is "Do they use sound security principles?" Does their API use SSL? How does authentication work? How is my information stored? Etc.
Another factor is "Do I trust them with my data?" This has a lot to do with the company's track record, business model, and of course their location. Where are they? What are the privacy laws like there? What is the level of corruption?
If government agencies (and their subcontractors) can go to my service provider and secretly demand sweeping access to any "foreigners data", without any sort of due process, why would I do business with that company? I think I'd rather go with a company in a country with strong privacy protections, even for non-citizens, and take my chances with best practices for securing data on the wire.
Due process and strong privacy protections are a competitive advantage for a country... The US is royally screwing it's own tech sector with these policies.
Yes so true. People will still be spied and what is truly harmed by this spying revelation is US commerce itself. In a global economy you don't want to be known for being untrustworthy.
They should go one step farther. I would love to see Germany set up a program to woo American tech talent to Germany to work on anti-surveillance systems.
Make it a no strings attached program. All you need to do is move to Germany and work with software/hardware that ensures secrecy. You would be given assistance to either join an existing company or set a new one up. Your choice. Financing would also be made available to build anti-surveillance startups.
If someone is in Germany and has access to the right ears in government, you should pitch this idea.
I would love to see some country champion any and all startups and open-source technologies that promote decentralization. We need more projects out there that are consumer friendly and use DHT based solutions like Kademlia for mutually shared data.
I say block all US services in EU. It will be inconvenient as hell and incredibly annoying but it will give European companies a chance to fill the void.
And yes I know it can be bypassed but jumping through hoops is always annoying and if European alternatives show up people would be less likely to bother.
No, the only real solution is for the EU to come up with its own proprietary replacement for the internet. Replace everything from HTML up to HTTP with closed source software built by EU governments. Remove any server or computer hardware either built in the US or built by a company that also services the US, and replace them with systems built in the EU. And since you can't trust American IT workers not to be NSA moles they'll have to expel all of them, revoke American visas and bar Americans from entry into any EU nation.
It's funny you would fall so hard for the mock outrage of our European politicians. Please.
If the US says jump, they say how high. They couldn't be happier the US is letting them join in their war games. The USA and Europe are united in their total servitude to big business - those who pay the bills call the tunes. Goldman Sachs is international, they've bought up Politicians on both sides of the pond. Same for other big players.
In the case of espionage - they are embarrassed; but the outrage displayed is just for show, and the "consequences" they speak of are just sound bites for the press. There isn't a thing more harmless than a threat by a European politician.
At this point I've basically decided this whole thing has moved past Logos here to complete Pathos. That top post is somewhat disheartening to be honest as it seems to wholeheartedly ignore even Europes own sordid past.
I'm sure there will be fallout but sometimes I swear there is a latent anger from certain Europeans on the Internet, note I've never seen this in person yet or to the degree I see online, that makes me feel like all Americans are being viewed as some sort of demonic entity. I'm starting to think vacations to Europe aren't a good idea because I'm getting a completely unnerving vibe that I'll be viewed that way just for visiting.
Aka: the exact same thing people from Europe have been saying about never visiting the USA for reason XYZ. The vitriol is starting to make me want to just visit Russia or China or anywhere else instead. If people don't want to be civil about where I live fine, I can be pathological too.
I personally love interoperability and open standards I never said we have to reinvent the wheel but if part of the wheel is broken (like the US spying on us) we need to replace it.
Yes but you can't fix a wheel by cutting the axle. Not every US company is engaged in spying, and the US has ways of spying that go beyond web services. Also, the precedent this would set in terms of politicizing global access to the internet, to me, would be no less egregious than what the US is doing. How long, after that, does every disagreement between nations result in wars of packet-dropping or malicious routing?
That said, something a bit less drastic might well do some good for the world. Instead of blocking everything, block google and facebook for a day, just to show they can and they're serious. Or even just threaten to. Anything that causes the powerful companies that American politicians actually listen to to maybe lose money might lead to some real action.
I think you're overestimating the US's role on the internet.
Look at china they seem to be doing ok although their reasons are completely the wrong ones for doing it.
Yes a blockade for a couple of days would be a good idea however I'm afraid Europeans are being underestimated by the US so if we don't have the determination to stick to it it's not worth doing.
But why assume that these European replacements for American web services wouldn't either be complicit in spying for their home countries, or the US? Why is a Great Firewall of Europe better for Europeans' own freedom?
Because of accountability. And I am much more confident about the EU than the US regarding the possibility of stopping the surveillance dystopia.
Yes, bad things happen over here too, but the indifference of the public has received a huge dent, with the lid now blown off the BND and GCHQ stuff. Also remember, that privacy is a huge issue for the general populace in some countries (Germany, Poland, Bulgaria).
I think a forced warning that your data is going to be held in US servers would work. Similar to the cookie warning that is compulsory here in the UK - otherwise your site risks getting blocked.
Face it there is already censorship and people pretending its for a noble cause like to prevent piracy or child porn or whatever I'm just taking it to its logical next step. Protecting your countries users from foreign spying.
Edit: I'm not saying its right but if we're already doing the wrong thing why not make it entertaining and beneficial to local business.
I would love to see the US try to set up shop in the EU in order to spy on its citizens. Now that would be an entertaining international incident.
A US company not being able to buy a EU company is an interesting side effect that may promote diversity and innovation. Have you heard of speciation?
Also everything can be overcome however it would make it considerably more difficult for the US to conduct mass surveillance on EU citizens.
You don't have to hope for it. It already happens.
Companies spy on each other sometimes with the help of intelligence services[1]. When CN or RU or the US or DE, etc. set up shop, they don't officially announce it. And if the EU decided to embargo US services, there would be more incentive to do this kind of espionage. But it's all moot. Most, if not all secret intelligence services share at least some data with each other. It's to each other's benefit. It makes each other's jobs easier and it helps them circumvent laws technically forbidding them from directly spying on their own citizens.
The US does not really care to surveil EU citizens, so much as the EU prefers the US do their dirty work for them (and vice versa). That's separate from intelligence gathering and industrial espionage but they all have these mutual understandings.
> I would love to see the US try to set up shop in the EU in order to spy on its citizens.
I think that the usual practice with foreign intelligence services setting up shop in target countries is to avoid being seen.
OTOH, if you don't think an agency specifically chartered to gather foreign signals intelligence which is recently the subject of controversy for allegedly exceeding its mandate by its conduct of secret domestic signals intelligence gathering is somehow timid about doing the thing it is specifically chartered to do, I'd be interested in hearing why.
Ok lets assume you're right and the US manages to splice into fiber optic cables in the country they target and for some absurd reason no human being ever checks the fiber optic cables which are easily accessible over land how would they send all that data back for processing?
Or if they do it locally how the hell do they get all that equipment in without being noticed?
When you're doing surveillance in a foreign country you can't be extravagant you have to choose your targets carefully.
I'm against mass surveillance for the hell of it I know there will always be a certain degree of surveillance i just want them out of average peoples lives they have no business being there.
> Ok lets assume you're right and the US manages to splice into fiber optic cables in the country they target
I don't recall ever saying anything about the US managing to splice into fiber optic cables, or any other particular mechanism of gathering signals intelligence.
No such action will have any direct effect on surveillance. I think it's clear by now that the NSA hoovers everything, regardless of citizenship or location.
But if it has an economic effect, that might get someone's ear.
So yeah, shun US data companies, it may compel the NSA to at least be a little more transparent.
> Are you saying the NSA is spying even on traffic that never goes near the USA? That would be one of the biggest claims so far.
Foreign signals intelligence is the whole point of the NSA [1]. The only reason their spying on domestic traffic is controversial is that, unlike purely foreign traffic, there is a history of abuse of surveillance for domestic political purpose which has produced both laws imposing limits on and public expectations of restraint with regard to domestic surveillance.
So, no, the NSA spying on purely foreign traffic with no domestic nexus wouldn't be "one of the biggest claims so far", it would be exactly what the NSA exists to do and a non-issue.
It would be news if the NSA wasn't spying on purely foreign traffic, not if it was.
[1] From http://www.nsa.gov/ : "The NSA/CSS core missions are to protect U.S. national security systems and to produce foreign signals intelligence information."
That's naive. You don't think the Russians and the Chinese have operatives in Washington trying to spy on Americans? Spying is illegal, but everyone does it.
What we're talking about is an international game of brinksmanship.
Illegality is a relative proposition. There are scarce few international laws that govern anything and even fewer international laws with teeth. Each individual nation has laws against spying, but given the propensity to avoid an international incident, I tend to think that spies who are discovered are either tortured or returned to their home countries. Since the laws of one country do not extend beyond their borders, it's difficult to enforce ones sovereignty in a different country, or to exert ones own authority over another nation-state's actor.
This is all just very murky, but the concept of illegality is relative at best in this instance.
> I think that would be news to the rest of the world since it's likely illegal in most of it.
The specific details of the NSA's (or any foreign intelligence service of any nation) intelligence gathering would be news, but the fact the NSA (or any foreign intelligence service of any nation) actually gathers intelligence outside of its home nation, quite often in violation of the laws of the places from which the intelligence is gathered, really isn't news.
I mean, that's the whole point of foreign intelligence services.
Precisely my point. Extreme emotional reactions are not a good basis for an informed opinion. Learning about a subject is much more important than telling people on the Internet how mad you are about it. The downside (and I admit, it is a downside) is that it's much harder to maintain that sense of absolute certainty and self-righteousness that constant outrage affords. The world becomes much more complicated and forming an opinion that you can be confident in actually takes effort.
I thought that it had already been revealed that they have collection centers all over the world. I remember reading that in one of the articles I've read on the subject, but now I can't find it. So maybe I'm misremembering.
Anyways, it wouldn't be much of a surprise to me to hear that they have collection centers in other countries. I already pretty much assume that they do.
Edit: I found some evidence. Look at the leaked slides on Boundless Informant [1]. It mentions having sites in "regions" and querying for what kind of coverage we have for a given country. It doesn't explicitly say that "region" means a world region. It could just as easily mean a region inside the US, but I think that would be awkward terminology when the rest of the document has a global scope.
Why is this surprising? You don't think the NSA has APTs running in internet exchanges around the globe?
I would say that thinking the NSA doesn't have assets somewhere, given their propensity to hoover every piece of data within an arm's reach, is foolish at best.
It would be better, these days, to assume your data is compromised as soon as it is sent over the Internet.
A lot of Internet traffic is routed through the US, not because it's the closest geographically but because the fattest pipes and the lowest transfer prices may be there. One of the original leaked slides illustrates that pretty good.
Such short-sighted outcries do not help. He should first consider asking people to stop using US-made, closed source operating systems. Then he should ask Germany's secret service (BND) what they are doing with the data from DE-CIX (e.g. sharing with the NSA ...).
Of course it fucking helps. Every step helps. Your suggestion is so useless to be irritating. "Oh, we can't say anything because there might be some asshole on the internet who could make it sound hypocritical. We best just keep doing fuck all because that's worked so well thus far".
The journalist forgets that tapping into the cables only works for unencrypted traffic - this is actually the reason that NSA bothered Google and others in the first place.
MITM always unambiguously refers to an active attack. That's not what they do or have ever done. It stands for man-in-the-middle. They aren't in the middle when they tap fibers.
Lack of forward secrecy ciphersuites does allow for retroactive decryption upon server secret key compromise though, which is what I assume you meant.
Why doesn't Europe just block US services for "national security reasons?" Like say...china does.
I have to admit, this puts china's blocking in a completely new light...they might have a real argument if I didn't already know they just want to spy on us themselves.
Actions have to be taken. Germany is spying on its citizens. The US is spying on everyone. It's pretty obvious where the priority should be here. Man I'm so sick of any fucking action anyone suggests getting met by a bunch of morons pointing out how it might be "hypocritical". Who gives a fuck?
Because the US' problem originated in hypocrisy. This world will only change into one that is for the living people when everything that is in truth and falsehood is revealed. To engage in action that is connected to falsehood is to make a relationship with falsehood. To do so under the guise of acting to solve these problems makes oneself a hypocrite.
Exactly. The NSA's purpose for existence is to intercept communications of non USA citizens outside USA borders. Right or wrong, it's simply why they exist in the first place.
The current scandal is due to how much they do it to USA citizens within USA borders ... without getting into the right or wrong of it, the latter is against the Constitution, while the former is not.
Yeah. If Google/AWS/AWS-hosted companies/Apple/Microsoft/Facebook know what's good for them, they'll quickly do literally everything they can to force the US government to stop this foolish bullshit. They have far more non-US-citizen customers than they do US-citizen customers.
> That might be the focus of the scandal in the US, but it certainly isn’t in the EU.
Its the focus of the leak which is at the heart of the scandal (and the leaker is not someone for whom the NSA spying on purely foreign traffic would be remotely problematic or noteworthy.)
But it would be a mistake to content the focus of the leak with the overall scope and focus of the NSA's intelligence gathering efforts.
(edit) That's unless you build every single piece of the OS from the source that you either proofread by hand or obtain from a trusted distributor. While you can be reasonably sure that Linux kernel you just built from kernel.org sources (after diligently verifying the .tgz sig, of course) is clean, any of the binary packages you install afterwards may be rooted all the same.
Where does a distribution like Debian stand? Can the people who upload packages do something fishy and not get caught? Not that I doubt their intention, but let's assume a developer is forced to do it by say his state or through some other coercion?
Would we be able to detect any suspicious activity on our closed source operating system, or would a backdoor implemented specifically for intelligence agencies allow undetectable communication between hosts?
We probably would be able to. But consider that the "backdoor" can be incredibly sneaky. Look up the claimed "Crypto AG" attack, which involved pre-internet crypto devices. The claimed way it worked was to include the key or enough data to allow decryption in the transmitted message in some form.
NSA wouldn't need something to contact their data centres and leak the information, because presumably they can tap some fiber connection or other your data ends up travelling to. All they'd need would be a slow leak of your keys. Even, say, just a few of tweaked data per packet, or tacked on to a file format that is resistant to it, so that they can pick up key information together with the data stream, and they're good.
Or even just intentionally introducing a specific way of generating keys, known to the with sufficient precision to allow them to reduce the key space enough that brute forcing the remaining bits is feasible. For a conceptual example, look up the old Netscape SSL vulnerability (Netscape's SSL used to rely on factors like the host time and pid, that especially on a typical Unix-y system also running services like mail servers that often would include the pid of of the delivery agent in headers etc., was extremely easy to narrow down)
It's difficult to do this in a way that can't/won't sooner or later be discovered, but given the number of likely unintentional mistakes that have been made that still have taken in some cases years to be discovered (publicly at least), it's plausible that there are intentional flaws in at least some software to make it possible for specific parties to be intended to be able to break it.
So you've compiled your entire OS from source with a compiler you verified to be safe? Because if you use a prebuilt OS how do you know it isn't already "root kitted" to not show certain traffic?
That's what's bothering me. How feasible would it be to implement something like that on a massive scale and people not finding out? And how about using your router to deny incoming and outgoing traffic unless it's whitelisted? Is there some way for the router to identify the service that sent out a packet and deny or allow it or at least "scan" the content and make sure nothing malicious is being received or sent?
The OS being inherently untrustworthy forces you to operate under the assumption that it is tracking you and that it does have backdoors. So instead of focusing on weeding out any rootkits or backdoors, you'd be putting the OS under external scrutiny, including filtering all of its network traffic on a separate device.
If, on the other hand, you let yourself get convinced that a stock Debian installation is more likely than not to be "clean", then you just lost your edge and any interested party can waltz in with a truckload of rootkits and you wouldn't even think to care. This whole "open source is more trustworthy" mindset is really quite dangerous.
I don't understand how it's apples an oranges.
So your telling me right now the choice between Windows, OSX and Linux and the choice for security is somehow ambiguous? Both Microsoft and Apple have been directly passing data to the NSA. Where are the data leaks from Linux or other open source software. Open source software is a lot harder to control, not only do you have people with principles in play, your gonna have a tough time gaining control over decentralized systems.
Just remember if someone(like the NSA or any other skilled hacker) wants to get on to your computer they will, with enough time anything can be broken. So whats the solution let's pick Windows and never look back.
Avoid web services is hardly practical advice. The whole reason people use computers is the internet.
And for that of course they don't need risky back doors (which some security researcher would find sooner or later). They just control a few central exchanges and done.
This is the same Germany that issues mandatory RFID based national ID cards, and requires all citizens to register with the police when they change residences?
This might be a good time to remind the angry mob that other nations spy just as much, or more so, than the US.
The US just got caught.
This is like the secret of the atom bomb. Once it's out, it's out. No pretending that it doesn't exist any more. Guess what? What you put on the wire is fair game for any of scores of different intelligence agencies. No, not usually the criminal law enforcement folks, but the spy guys.
And most of the politicians in these countries don't know. In fact, for a program like this to be effective, very few people should know.
You can't put that genie back in the bottle by getting mad at the US and pulling your data out. (Not that I blame you. Might make a fine protest. It just does nothing to ensure your privacy and anonymity) In fact, you could actually be opening your data up to even more abuse. Who knows?
The world needs to decide once and for all whether to make this data completely transparent and accessible to all, or an international crime to collect. Pretending this is a USA-only problem is just another way of sticking your head in the sand.
> This might be a good time to remind the angry mob that other nations spy just as much, or more so, than the US.
Probably not "as much"; quantity of spying is limited by quantity of resources available for spying, and the US probably outspends most other nations (quite likely, as with military spending more generally, at or near the amount of all other nations combined) on spying.
This is true, perhaps, of voluntary collection of data from cooperative partners, which is, to be sure, one of the controversial aspects of the NSAs domestic surveillances that has come out, but hardly the limit of the NSA's spying.
It will continue to require resources to collect information from people who are trying to prevent you from having it.
The only way to stop this kind of thing is to restrict the size of your sovereign nation to a size where the citizenry can actually have some idea what their state is doing ... maxing out at a million or so, say: you dont see governments like Iceland or the Swiss cantons acting in this kind of out-of-control manner.
Funny thing is, this is coming from a politician who usually shows no qualms when it comes to invading people's privacy. If anything, he's merely envies the NSA for its extensive surveillance capabilities.
If German politicians really wanted to do something they could to do so easily by granting asylum to Edward Snowden.
Just out of interest, given the revelation that the UK is tapping underwater fibres, anyone know if they have a plan to stop doing it? Or they just going to carry on?
German here. All these after Snowden proposals from German government or opposition are fake. Either they call it a Hollywood fantasy, want to escalate it to the EU or now ignore snooping happens at the cable.
The day anybody proposes encryption to the public I'll consider to start voting again. And regarding some other comments here, I think it's a stretch calling a country democracy, if the voter turnout is below 50%.
I work in a European branch of one of the very large tech consultancies, and I know that decisions to this effect have been made in several of the countries we operate in. There's a lot of money that isn't being funneled to Amazon and the like because of this.
I have started doing this with some services and there were good alternatives available. But for search I can't find one. I tried DuckDuckGo for a few weeks but the results were awful compared with Google. Can anyone recommend a good, more secure alternative to Google?
While I dislike the design and am not entirely comfortable with the idea of making ad money off Google (well, Google takes its share) by just wrapping their products, this site gives you Google results but without giving Google much to identify or track you:
Keep using DDG and give feedback. Make an investment of your time with a slightly worse solution with a longer range goal of having a better solution later.
* Americans no longer welcome in Europe; you think you can spy on us, torture people, kill innocents, trample over longstanding diplomatic conventions to ground a president of a country, put the full might of your police state to hunt down your own freedom fighters, and then come here and have a good time or do business? Think again. US citizens not welcome here anymore!!! You can do what you want in your country, but don't come here if you don't respect our way of life and our privacy.
* Let's kick the Brits out of the EU (they don't seem to be too happy in there anyway); they are basically just a foothold for the American fascists in the EU and do their bidding
* Let's not stop at moving our own email and social accounts to European providers. Refuse to accept emails coming from gmail, yahoo etc. domains! Send automatic replies that explain why and suggesting ways what is acceptable.
The point is: The US electorate and businesses are either pro surveilling the whole world, even their own allies, or they are lethargic and indifferent. If the former, we should draw the consequence and stop having contact and exchanges with them. If the latter, we should increase the cost of doing nothing. Hurt them the only way we, as citizens of the world without a voice in the American police state, can hurt them: In their pocket and in their options to travel and have fun. America is always so happy lecturing the world about democracy. Well then, now you can show us which way the wind really blows in America and its relation with the world.