Yep, like Bolivia, Venezuela spies on its citizens too...

[stevenleser]

http://www.jta.org/2013/01/31/news-opinion/world/report-venezuela-is-spying-on-its-jews

Report: Venezuela is spying on its Jews
By Gil Shefler
January 31, 2013 1:53pm

NEW YORK (JTA) — Venezuela’s secret service, SEBIN, is spying on the country’s Jewish community, according to leaked documents said to be from the spy agency.

Last week, Analisis24, a right-leaning Argentinean news website, released 50 documents attributed to the Venezuelan intelligence agency containing private information on prominent Venezuelan Jews, local Jewish organizations and Israeli diplomats in Latin America. The Anti-Defamation League, among others, believes the documents are authentic based on the wealth of detailed and private information included.

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The ADL says the report is deeply troubling and is a further sign of the government of Hugo Chavez’s inveterate bias against Jews.

"It is chilling to read reports that the SEBIN received instructions to carry out clandestine surveillance operations against members of the Jewish community, as described in detail in documents leaked by the Argentinean website Analisis24," the ADL said Wednesday in a statement. "In a country where the government and some of its followers have publicly accused the Jewish community of disloyalty and where the community’s institutions and houses of worship have been attacked, reports of this kind of surveillance add fuel to an already incendiary atmosphere inciting prejudice and hate."

[stevenleser]

1. Kick!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. They do it, so we do it? Piss poor justification for acts commited by any governement.

[ljm2002]

3. It seems the real question here is...

...what countries DON'T spy on their citizens?

Seems like that would be a shorter list than those who do.

[stevenleser]

8. I agree.

My ultimate point is here. http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023169150

[ljm2002]

10. And your ultimate point is very good...

...except for the part about "manufactured outrage", which may account for the lack of responses.

Seriously, I agree with you that the overall surveillance will be the important question going forward. But saying that this is manufactured outrage just alienates a lot of people who share these concerns.

[Savannahmann]

15. Which is of course, the whole point of calling it manufactured outrage.

If you can stigmatize your opponents, then you can isolate them, and then steamroll them.

So far, it hasn't worked, it's been backfiring, so they are posting more threads all the time to tell us how wrong we are and how we just don't understand. I guess they figure if they shout it often enough we'll go away. Sadly, this issue, and this outrage isn't going anywhere.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

4. Do you think we will come to accept a surveillance state like you have

...if you post enough articles about other countries spying on their citizens? It's not going to work on me. I'm made of stronger stuff than that.

[treestar]

9. With people calling others authoritarians, calling the US a police state

a totalitarian state, it's certainly relevant that these places Eddie might seek asylum in are worse police states.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

11. I disagree about relevance, but that wasn't my question

I asked if the OP thought that enough repetition of other nations' domestic spying would cause readers of the thread to come to accept a surveillance state in the way that he has (and in the way that you have, now that you've joined the conversation).

[Rex]

5. You should go on Foxnews and discuss this!

I hear they are really open to objective material.

[stevenleser]

7. I definitely will if offered the chance. nt

[HiPointDem]

13. I'm sure you'll make points with the fox demographic.

[cali]

6. it's just sad that you think you've scored some great intellectual point

you don't seem to grasp the simplest of notions; that domestic spying in Bolivia or Venezuela has no impact on U.S. citizens or U.S. society.

[HiPointDem]

12. There is not a state in the world that doesn't spy on its citizens, and I think we all know that.

But 'everybody does it' elides the considerations of 'how extensively' and 'under what conditions' & 'under what kind of safeguards'.

which are the considerations under discussion in the present scandal in the US. The answers appear to be "universally," "universally," and "we don't know, it's secret".

[frylock]

14. this is some real groundbreaking stuff here, man..

this really makes me want to rethink my position on the Morales incident and the surveillance state as a whole. thanks so much for posting!

[Scurrilous]

16. K & R