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Colbert turns his funny gun on Snowden in RSA keynote

(news.cnet.com)
69 points tim333 | 1 comments | 02 Mar 14 11:56 UTC | HN request time: 0.261s | source
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danbruc ◴[02 Mar 14 13:37 UTC] No.7329102[source]▶
Why, if Snowden was concerned with letting us know how we are spied on, why did he let us know how we spy on other countries? I think we should spy on other countries.

The last sentence is where he is - only in my opinion of course - completely wrong; no country should spy on other countries without very good reasons. And wanting to know what is going on behind closed doors of foreign governments or companies misses my definition of very good reasons by orders of magnitude.

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wheaties ◴[02 Mar 14 13:52 UTC] No.7329135[source]▶
I think k we should spy on other countries and share his view of Snowden. I'm really glad Snow den leaked what he did, I just wish he didn't leak all of it. It does raise many questions on motivation. if he's disgusted with spy work in general he should just say so and be honest with the world. I could then have more respect for him doing what he did (and I do respect the conversation he's started.)
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danbruc ◴[02 Mar 14 13:58 UTC] No.7329149[source]▶
Can you give good reasons why the United States should spy on other countries? Or let's make it concrete, I am from Germany, why should the United States spy on Germany?
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wheaties ◴[02 Mar 14 14:05 UTC] No.7329167[source]▶
We can only gain by spying on you. We have a military base with defense systems in your country. Your political decisions therefore will have an impact on the effectiveness of our military system to defend our country.
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1. danieldk ◴[02 Mar 14 14:37 UTC] No.7329241[source]▶
We can only gain by spying on you.

Except for a lot of damage to goodwill, which can have an economic impact. Lots of European citizens dislike the US heavily now and that comes with disliking US products.

Your political decisions therefore will have an impact on the effectiveness of our military system to defend our country.

First, the US and Germany are allies. Allies talk and don't spy. Second, by now it's clear that a lot of the espionage is economical.

The US/NSA mistreated their allies. It will take many years to rebuild trust.