In the news

It seems to me that there are three aspects to this story: that the Americans might be breaking their own rules by spying on their own citizens, that GCHQ might be breaking our rules by spying on us via America, and that America is using their corporate dominance of the internet to spy on everyone else, apparently in violation of no rules and in accordance with the principle of 'fuck you if you aren't American'.

Most of the coverage i've seen seems to focus on the first two, but it's the third i find most interesting. How will other countries react to being so comprehensively spied on? Will we see a lot of legal barriers erected to stop movement of personal data across borders to keep it out of hostile jurisdictions? Or treaties regulating bulk spying? Maybe even an international organisation to police cross-border monitoring? Or an international conspiracy of governments against their people? Or the balkanisation of the internet?

And ironic that Obama's spent this week asking the Chinese to please stop using the internet to spy on America...

^ This - Basically the UK has "subbed" out some of its spy work to a friendly third party (The USA) in order to get around its own laws, the fact that said subcontractor is probably breakings its own laws in collecting the data and also the ease at which the mega USA corporate internet providers have granted access to this stuff is where the shit storm is.