German TV: Snowden Says NSA Also Spies on Industry

[MADem]

50. The world does work that way--it's why no one is getting terribly excited about all this,

save those with direct skin in the game.

Excesses are certainly happening in this regard, I don't disagree with that at all, but to suggest that countries don't do this as a matter of course is naive. And plenty of them (cough-Pootie-cough) are quite aggressive and heavy-handed when they intrude. The Chinese have a very large military unit that does nothing but try to hack military and industrial computers around the world. It's a full time gig.

The reason that Germany, France, Brazil, etc. aren't continuing to fume after a quick little "wet hen" display for their own populations' consumption is because everybody DOES do it. Apparently the only one who doesn't know this is Moscow Ed.

Old article, but interesting: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Security-Watch/Backchannels/2013/1015/NSA-spying-Everyone-does-it

it's clear that while the US is a data-mining heavyweight, large numbers of other governments are in on the act. A recent story in Ars Technica points out that Germany has legal measures that require email and other Internet services to provide customer data if handed a court order. They're also legally bound from saying if they've received an order for data. While laws vary from country to country, Europe in general does not, at first glance at least, seem like a haven from surveillance.

European Union "law does not explicitly protect against access by European intelligence services, but member states law and practice does," Ralf Bendrath, the senior policy adviser to a German member of the European Parliament, told Ars.

Elsewhere? Russia maintains a vast domestic surveillance state of its own. A report in Russia last week alleged that the government's FSB security service has installed a surveillance system that will enable them to intercept and read virtually every digital communication in Sochi during the 2014 winter Olympics.