Shouldn't the leaders of the free world set the best example for free countries to aspire to?
No one begrudges the US, UK, or any other country having spies and what not. They are essential to peace. Remember the point of spying is to understand your opponents real intentions. Imagine how vital it was to know that the USSR was NOT going to start WW3. Its all about how you use them.
I think part of problem here is the West using cold war apparatus to fight what is essentially civilian crime, which is what both drugs and terrorism are, after they lost "work" because of the fall of the USSR.
> No one begrudges the US, UK, or any other country having spies and what not. They are essential to peace.
Perhaps, but it has certainly not helped that the diplomatic traffic that formerly would have been carried on essentially separate channels is now carried on the Internet with the traffic of normal citizens. Even if we said it was OK for the NSA to peep on dictators and diplomats they'd still be tapping the same channels, but instead would be 'minimizing' a lot more.
> I think part of problem here is the West using cold war apparatus to fight what is essentially civilian crime, which is what both drugs and terrorism are, after they lost "work" because of the fall of the USSR.
Well, you're right, but the reason is because only the Cold War apparatus (and especially expertise) could realistically handle the demands the U.S. government is trying to put on itself to handle the work of counter-terrorism. The NSA isn't doing the work because they are the NSA and they felt like it, they're doing it because the FBI couldn't hack it even if they tried. Note that even now FBI is the agency that handles the NSLs and warrants and other legal niceties to/from the companies associated with PRISM.
The FBI is certainly not completely innocent in this type of stuff. They have COINTELPRO and Carnivore to their credit already, and also CALEA-associated types of technological wiretaps they can employ domestically any time they want (with appropriate documentation, of course)...
No one begrudges the US, UK, or any other country having spies and what not. They are essential to peace. Remember the point of spying is to understand your opponents real intentions. Imagine how vital it was to know that the USSR was NOT going to start WW3. Its all about how you use them.
I think part of problem here is the West using cold war apparatus to fight what is essentially civilian crime, which is what both drugs and terrorism are, after they lost "work" because of the fall of the USSR.