Finally, Political Outrage Toward the NSA

The political machine can be slow to turn, but it seems finally the politicians and bureaucrats are finally showing some outrage at the global spy network that is the NSA:

Senior European Union officials are outraged by revelations that the US spied on EU representations in Washington and New York.

Well, at least some bureaucrats somewhere are outraged.

And it isn’t just emails and telephone calls this time:

The documents also indicate the US intelligence service was responsible for an electronic eavesdropping operation in Brussels.

Finally, perhaps some politicians will take a stand for the people.

[Luxembourgian Foreign Minister Jean] Asselborn characterized the operation as a breach of trust. "The US justifies everything as being part of the fight against terrorism. But the EU and its diplomats are not terrorists.”

Well, maybe they are taking a stand for only some of the people.  I guess to Jean, the citizens and the residents in the EU could all be terrorists.

German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, who has been sharply critical of the US since the beginning of the Prism scandal, was furious on Sunday…. “It defies belief that our friends in the US see the Europeans as their enemies.”

Don’t be shocked, Sabine.  Your friends in the US government see the Americans as enemies as well.  They are only delivering the same level of liberty and justice for all.

"It is unacceptable when European diplomats and politicians are spied on in their day-to-day activities," said Manfred Weber, deputy head and security expert for the European People's Party….

Yes, perhaps if the spying was limited to the run-of-the-mill European residents….and then the US cuts the European diplomats and politicians in on the action, of course.

A further Merkel ally in European Parliament, Markus Ferber, accused the US on Sunday of using methods akin to the feared East German secret police, the Stasi. Like Weber, Ferber is a member of the CSU. "A democratic constitutional state that uses Stasi methods sacrifices all credibility as a moral authority"…

No worries, Markus.  The US government sacrificed its claim to moral authority long ago.  Remember the complicity in this travesty committed right on your home turf?  Or these two brutal attacks with this devastating outcome? 

Of course, one could go back to the beginning, with slavery built in to the constitution of this so-called moral authority, or the genocide of countless tens of thousands in the western portion of the continent in the decades after the immorality of the war against southern independence?

Peer Steinbrück, the Social Democratic challenger to Merkel, demanded that the chancellor investigate.… "If the accusations are confirmed, it would go far beyond legitimate security concerns. That would mean that friends and partners were spied on. That would be completely unacceptable."

But Peer, why do you think you are a friend or a partner?  The US government doesn’t consider its own citizens as friends, why should they think any better of you?