[bloopletech]

Well that's nice; I'm glad to see that our common interests as HN users extends only to the US border.

Widespread unchecked surveillance is evil in and of itself, it doesn't matter _who_ is doing the surveilling.

Following your argument, if the Chinese government engaged in exactly the same sort of surveillance against you that the NSA does, you'd be fine with it, since it would merely be international espionage. But in the end, the same information about you is being stored. And your information is probably less trustworthy with the Chinese government than even with the NSA!

'Spying' in the traditional meaning is qualitatively different to dragnet surveillance of all communications.

I understand that all countries engage in a level of spying, and that friends may not always remain so, but the US' seemingly widespread lack of trust in _any_ other country, only works when you're (1) right and (2) the most powerful country.

These may not always hold true, and it's when bad things happen that you need friends you can trust (and that can trust you).

[fastball]

Firstly, I'm not from the US. Nextly, yes. Yes, I would be ok with the Chinese government spying on me, if they were able to.

In the case of the NSA, the NSA coerced/worked with many private US companies and took the data from them (rather than somehow collecting the data themselves). Such coercion of American companies is what I believe should be curtailed.

The thing is, China has no such reach in my life. I don't use any Chinese websites to store my data. I don't use any Chinese social networks to keep up with my friends. I don't use a Chinese email service.