News that the NSA is spying so extensively on US allies like France and Germany is causing embarrassment and discomfort -- more for the victims than the perpetrators! Thus far neither country has done much to put a stop to it. But what about US outrage when it is claimed that China might have spied on the US?
News that the NSA is spying so extensively on US allies like France and Germany is causing embarrassment and discomfort -- more for the victims than the perpetrators! Thus far neither country has done much to put a stop to it. But what about US outrage when it is claimed that China might have spied on the US?
News that the NSA is spying so extensively on US allies like France and Germany is causing embarrassment and discomfort -- more for the victims than the perpetrators! Thus far neither country has done much to put a stop to it. But what about US outrage when it is claimed that China might have spied on the US?
Hello everybody and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With me today is Daniel McAdams.
Daniel, good to see you.
Good morning, sir.
Good.
I want to talk about NSA, our favorite organization.
You know, but there's some good news.
The good news is out that Edward Snowden and Assange has released more information and the good news is that they're getting that information out.
Of course, the bad news is what's really going on and all the things that we're involved in, and that's what I want to visit with you about.
Of course, the most recent releases shows that we have been very much involved in spying around the world and on leaders as well.
And that information has been out too.
But it's probably more extensive, and it comes and goes at Have and Ed Quit and on and on.
It goes, but three French presidents have been spied on and Merkel.
And the responses have been sort of meek when you think about it.
What do you think is going on?
Do you think this is necessary for our national security?
Well, I don't think it's any surprise or should be that the U.S. and any country would spy on even allies to know information that it considers strategically important.
So we can't really be too naive, but I think the surprise is how extensive it is.
And really, the fact that it got out is what hurts everyone the most.
But what is surprising, you think it's a matter of national pride to know that you are so subject to another country listening into your things.
And I just wonder how that will affect the opinions toward the U.S. in these countries.
Yeah, I think that's going to be negative, but there's one other thing that I want to mention is that an official was asked whether we're still spying on them, on people.
And they said, no, we did it, and we don't do it.
And right now we're not actually doing this.
But they didn't say we would never do it.
They said, we only will do it if it's in our national security interest to go ahead and start listening to Merkel on our personal phone calls.
So that's their excuse.
But what about the outrage when China gets involved in a little espionage and spying and taking information from us, whether it's official government or what?
But we feign outrage.
How could they do this to us?
How are we going to punish the Chinese?
And even when it's not proven, just on the suspicion that the Chinese may have done something, or the North Koreans remember with this movie, you know, just under the suspicion that they may have done something, the U.S. uses this as an excuse.
And here its hands are far from clean.
Yeah.
And you ask us about, you know, how is this going to affect us with our friends?
I think ultimately it will be a negative because I think when we lose a little bit of our prestige, economic and military, people are going to have a lot of excuses, you know, to turn against us, regardless of whether they participated in this or not.
But my guess is that we do a lot more of it.
And the motivations, I think this idea that we need this to be nationally secure, I think that is just not true.
But what about the corporations are involved?
They mentioned this in some of these reports that some of this spying is to go and look at corporations.
I guess in theory, you know, if we're in a time of war, maybe we ought to know what the foreign companies are doing and what they're building.
But right now, I think you can find out what they're doing.
Look at their financial reports or something.
But so the corporations are involved.
And I just wonder whether they get information that is helpful to our corporations.
You know, what are they doing?
Do they have something going on?
You know, corporate espionage is a pretty big deal.
And I think corporations do it all the time.
But here we have the government doing it.
And could our government be involved not only in the military industrial thing, but in the spying industrial combination of helping our companies with our spy operations.
I think that's the other thing that really reeks of hypocrisy because even if we accept the idea that the U.S. would look in on other countries' leaders, even if they're allies, that's a stretch I know for you, but even if you accepted that, the idea that on one hand we pretend to be so lily-white, but on the other hand, using the apparatus for national security to spy on private corporations in France to gain some sort of economic advantage for U.S. corporations is pretty hypocritical.
Yeah, and you know, the way the people react is very important because if there's enough people react, they'll make changes.
In this country, there was a reaction.
You know, what are they doing?
We demand help, we demand legislation, so they have reform, which is nothing, you know, and yet they're still saying, oh, we reformed this law, we improved.
And all they did was the NSA now parks all this information with the phone companies, and they can get it when they want, and there has been no reform at all.
So there was a little bit of outrage, but not enough to suggest, I mean, I'm sure you heard, if you made a suggestion that you got rid of it, you know, you come down from, the neocons come down and say, you are about the most un-American, and if a war breaks out or we're hit, we're going to call you on the carpet and blame you for this.
Of course, I was blamed for World War II one time in a debate by my friend John McCain, you know, because of this, of the ideas of non-intervention.
But the German people, you know, sometimes they get a bad rep, but right now, it may be that the German people themselves are more upset about this than the German government.
And the explanation for that is that the German people and families still have a memory of what was going on under Hitler, and that was when everybody lived in total fear because if they did, if they sneezed wrong, they were gone.
And it may be that they have a healthy skepticism against all this spying.
And also, don't forget, East Germany during the communist era with the Stasi, who, you know, essentially doing what the U.S. is doing, tapping everyone's phones, listening in.
So they even have more recent memories, and so they may start to view the U.S. more as like a new USSR, the way it's behaving.
Right.
And like you suggested, it is true, I think most of this spying is totally unnecessary for our national security.
And I was speaking before a military group once, and I thought, how am I going to handle this?
Because I'm not pro-war.
I'm pro-national defense.
And I thought, well, I'll go and I'll talk.
But I tried to assure all these military people as well as their supporters.
And it was a large crowd.
I said, look, our military is strong.
You don't have to worry about it.
Russia's not going to attack us.
There's not going to be an invasion.
Nobody's about to launch missiles.
So you guys, you're the military.
You've done a good job.
In essence, I was saying, we don't need any more.
You know, we have enough.
But I said then that, you know, our oath of office says that we should swear to uphold the Constitution against all foreign and domestic enemies.
And to my delight and surprise, it was the best applause I had for the whole speech.
So people know, the military people know, and I think sometimes they get misled into getting involved with good intentions and all these other things.
But at the same time, I think most people realize that our greatest threat is not from a military invasion, but I think our greatest threat today comes from our own government and our apathy in protecting civil liberties.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today, and I want to emphasize very sincerely that we as a people have to be alert and concerned about our civil liberties because ultimately, if we have our liberties, regardless of what kind of troubles we face,
Washington's Constant Influence00:00:49
especially economic problems, if you have the right to own property and the right to have voluntary associations and you have a sound currency, if you lose everything monetarily, and some of the people in this country deserve to lose a little bit of their economic security, but if something happened where there was this correction, all you need is your liberty.
And we can get back on our feet rather quickly.
And we don't have to be exhausting the treasury by constantly kowtowing to the military-industrial complex.
They drive things in Washington, and constantly they are doing this.
And we need to stand up to and say the purpose of government should be really limited, limited to protecting our life, liberty, and property.
Believe me, we would have a free and prosperous country under those conditions.