Rick Falkvinge, founder of the Pirate Party says Europe should stop being complicit in NSA surveillance and crimes. So, should politicians in the US. The NSA is a rogue monster so out of control that it arrogantly believes it can break any laws anywhere anytime without consequence, and does so on a daily basis.
A hero walks among us, and his name is Edward Snowden. He exposed a widespread wiretapping of ordinary people’s lives by the United States NSA that goes far, far beyond anything the East German Stasi ever did. While we cannot and should not control agencies in the United States, we can stop being complicit in their crimes against European citizens.
This is a crime under European legislation. It’s not just “bad guys” and “rogue states” that are wiretapped; detailed leaked maps reveal that they have wiretapped people in Germany as much as they have wiretapped people in, say, Iraq. This is more than cause for concern; this is an outrage.
What the United States NSA has done, and is doing, is so serious that it straddles the line to crimes against humanity.
As much as it pains me to suggest this, the evil is not with the NSA. Those “terrorcrats” are pretty much doing what Congress has told them that they can do.
The problem is with the Congress, which won’t reform/re-write or abolish the Patriot Act. The problem is with the Executive, both Bush and Obama, who have booth pushed the limit on what the law allows. The problem is with the FISA court, which is pretty much a highly-paid rubber stamp.
The NSA is a tool. The blame lies with thse who are wielding it.,
It’s both, I think. NSA and the rest of the national security apparatus has become an entity unto itself, and operates with little oversight. They exert huge power on Congress whose members, if not compliant are probably also scared of it. We don’t really know what NSA does or who they are loyal too.