The suggestion is that they were spooked by the 'tech giants' pleas - sounds like nonsense to me.

I suspect that the real reason is that it is causing significant problems for American businesses. High tech sales are plummeting in Asia, and Brazil has cancelled a deal as well. For companies like Microsoft it could impact their cloud operations and encourage more to switch to Linux.

As a one off it'll sting a bit, but it could be very damaging if others follow suit in the future.

GCHQ and NSA targeted charities, Germans, Israeli PM and EU chief

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013 ... mmissioner

I do not think it will be the last but I suspect that many will not use it as an excuse openly.

Israel condemns US spying revelations

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/d ... rd-snowden

*Nods, winks*
...


$10m NSA contract with security firm RSA led to encryption 'back door'

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/d ... encryption

Our governments don't have a fcuking clue how corrupt the security services are, do they? I mean the NSA set up an actual contract that's blatantly illegal like that's perfectly normal. That's the sort of crap we accuse the Chinese and Russians of whilst shouting about freedom and democracy, yet we're doing it to our own. Boils my piss.

Israel are right to be a little angry. They are allies and I think that they are the only other country to have been allowed to fly any US stealth aircraft. Mossad were clearly not on the ball with this one.

Sure, but of all America's allies, that is the one to keep the wariest eye on. They are after all the most belligerent, and the most likely to start a nasty war.

Israeli PM condemns US and UK spying on predecessor as 'unacceptable'

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/d ... acceptable

NSA mass collection of phone data is legal, federal judge rules

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/d ... tion-legal

That was quite a thought process for a NY judge - it's a pity most of it's spin. He just happens to have ties to the party of government of course.

The NSA's collecting a fcuksight more than metadata

Not always necessary. There will always be a list of judges who are amenable to what the department wants. From what I gather the fact that they were gathering the data from the telephone companies who were collecting it made it legal.

NSA 'hacking unit' infiltrates computers around the world – report

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/d ... g-unit-tao

I've no problem with that until it becomes 'standard' and they start using it against people they merely disagree with, if they haven't already.

The problem is that any terrorist group will not plug any laptop into the internet anyway. So this is not for spying against terrorists, they are worried about the rest of us.

The terrorists themselves operate dispersed global networks that rely on modern communications and international funding channels. If they can be forced to abandon those amenities for fear of spies that's half the battle won. The people who move their money and weapons for them can't exit the internet, they need it to do their business. So there's plenty the NSA can do to piss off terrorists even if they do hide in caves and communicate by intercontinental sneakernet.