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Originally Posted by Anh_Minh
My point is, heads rolling would ideally keep people spying for a reason instead of just "because we can, losers, what are you going to do about it?", the way Obama's carrying on.
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I wouldn't pin any hopes on that. Unless there's some sort of huge embarrassing scandal, there's no stopping agencies (say DGSE) from spying on foreign groups (like certain Airlines). There are two main deterrents keeping it from happening. The first is that all countries do it, so restricting spying activity will only put your own country at a disadvantage. The second is that the spy agencies have firmly entrenched power bases and civilian politicians generally won't have the skills and tools to enact major changes in their policies.
The Snowden case will probably lead to some changes to how American spy agencies operate, and it might actually get them to temporarily quit spying on friendly foreign leaders. But, they'll probably just pick up on it again at a later date.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SeijiSensei
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Obama has had plenty of opportunities to throw Bush under the bus. To date, I don't think he's done so yet, and I doubt that he'll do so for the foreseeable future.