That's a rather odd thing to believe. As an American, I certainly never felt like I was immune to foreign governments spying on me.
My problem is when my government collects tons of data about my own life and is then able to assemble it into any kind of crime they want. It's the collection of my personal information by my own government and then the use of that information for social control that I don't expect to happen. I would expect other governments to keep a close eye on me, especially if I were to get into a position where I could affect national policy. That is, after all, the role of an intelligence agency. [Insert long discussion about how spying and intelligence agencies have done a lot to prevent many wars.]
Why did they feel this way? Did they feel that freedom somehow meant being left alone by every government on the planet? There was a general understanding that people are in some form of agreement with their own government, right? And that this agreement had absolutely no bearing on any other government, right?
Because the vast majority of people know - rightly - that they have never engaged in anything at all that would in any way affect any foreign governments. And usually not their own government either. They don't see any reason why anyone would want to subject them to surveillance.
Because of the shock and horror that people displayed when the extent of the Stasi surveillance was uncovered - at the time, even the most ardent regime critics tended to be surprised at the Stasi revelations.
It seemed impossibly paranoid for anyone to engage in the level of surveillance that the Stasi did.
Granted, technological progress have made Stasi level surveillance vastly easier, but I don't think most people are even now accepting just how much data is being captured and analysed.
>That's a rather odd thing to believe. As an American, I certainly never felt like I was immune to foreign governments spying on me.
That's mostly due to cold war propaganda, and the tons of movies and shitty shows like 24 that legitimize the notion that small nations (e.g Yugoslavia of yore, or some insignificant arab country) have spies everywhere and perform high-tech James-Bond like operations...
Foreign governments never cared/dared to spy on Americans like that. Most don't have the means, and even if they did, they have no power to do anything about what they find. And of course it they were caught they'd have to face the consequences from the 100000-pound global military, diplomatic and economic gorilla. Plus, most world governments are in cushy terms with the US.
The worst offender was USSR -- and then again it was insignificant to the level that is going on today, and USSR was a paper-tiger in lots of ways itself. Smaller countries, at worst, try to spy a little on delevelopments involving their country, e.g to spy on some diplomats, large businesses with interest in their area, etc. And that's talking about countries like France, Germany etc, not Belize or Albania or whatever.
Believing this is like believing the school bully is equally bullied himself from the other children.
There is very little distinction between your own government surveilling you and a foreign government surveilling you. Especially among western nations that share a great deal of intelligence.
There are currently hundreds of millions of people living in parts of the world where 'benign' foreign surveillance is the difference between being alive tomorrow and a US drone strike on your house.
"...Especially among western nations that share a great deal of intelligence..."
Hopefully I didn't present my opinion as some kind of solved problem. I agree that with the automation of collection and sharing of data, the game has changed. The original comment was about how people felt after the wall fell, and I thought it was a very strange thing for somebody to feel. Heck, if I were in their shoes, I'd be happy just not to have the secret police following me around.
There is a theory going around that somehow we can get along without any intelligence collection or data sharing at all. Frankly I do not understand how that would work. There are real threats and collecting intelligence about foreign entities and their intent has, over time, done great good for the world. In fact, there are many cases where the lack of good intelligence has caused much harm. But I'm willing to hear folks out.
It's called an expectation of privacy and it is something along the lines of not being investigated when you're not the suspect of some crime. Seems reasonable to me.
By my interpretation of what you wrote, you're suggesting that freedom actually means having no expectation of privacy. I can't agree to that.
OP is correct. I have the expectation that my torment will not invade my privacy. I also have the expectation that my government protects me from other governments. That's just how it works.
For sure right now the reality isn't that effective - but that doesn't change my expectation.
My problem is when my government collects tons of data about my own life and is then able to assemble it into any kind of crime they want. It's the collection of my personal information by my own government and then the use of that information for social control that I don't expect to happen. I would expect other governments to keep a close eye on me, especially if I were to get into a position where I could affect national policy. That is, after all, the role of an intelligence agency. [Insert long discussion about how spying and intelligence agencies have done a lot to prevent many wars.]
Why did they feel this way? Did they feel that freedom somehow meant being left alone by every government on the planet? There was a general understanding that people are in some form of agreement with their own government, right? And that this agreement had absolutely no bearing on any other government, right?