Item — HN Reader

It sounds to me like the implication here is --Snowden disrupted our intelligence agencies by preventing us from crucial information, therefore he harmed our government--. The assumption being that America and it's allies are entitled to all the information we are stealing through spying. When a non-American ally spies on America it's a crime, but when America spies, stopping it is a crime?

It's worth considering the idea that technological spying by procuring vulnerabilities without reporting perpetuates a technological arms race and concentrates power in the executive with no balance among other branches.

2 comments

I'm sorry but what in this article suggests that US/UK intelligence agencies spying is hypocritical in any way? Sovereign states have spied on each other for hundreds of years, long before the age of computers. When they're captured they are imprisoned or executed. There isn't anything hypocritical at all about conducting counter-intelligence while also trying to spy on others.

That is not what sources in the article are claiming.

>"Well, we are told authoritatively by people in Downing Street, in the Home Office, in the intelligence services that the Russians and the Chinese have all this information and as a result of that our spies are having to pull people out of the field because their lives are in danger."

There is a line about also damaging ability to collect information, but this is a separate claim; allegedly, information in one or more of the million+ files could jeopardize lives of human intelligence people stationed in foreign countries.