Is this ok in a democratic society?

[Faith No More]

You are willingly ignoring the fact that the NSA is a foreign intelligence service in Europe.
I do not deny that countries have intelligence services which collect data on it`s population and I certainly do not doubt that the French intelligence services are gathering information on their own citizens.
Yet the French are not giving the NSA a free card on spying on French citizens let alone helping to sabotage the efforts of the press to uncover such actions.

My point being: France is not giving up it`s sovereignty and it`s citizens rights to be fucked arround with by the NSA with the consent of the French goverment.

I wasn't willingly ignoring the fact, just misinterpreting your point. My apologies.

I am ignorant of the political relationship between the American and U.K. governments in recent history, but I can tell that the U.K. has appeared to sometimes act as the American lapdog since Tony Blair was elected. From what little I know, it looks as if it may even go back to Thatcher, and I speculate that most of this is the result of the relationship developed in WWII.

But perhaps someone with more political and historical expertise can shed some light on the subject.

[Something completely different]

I wasn't willingly ignoring the fact, just misinterpreting your point. My apologies.

I am ignorant of the political relationship between the American and U.K. governments in recent history, but I can tell that the U.K. has appeared to sometimes act as the American lapdog since Tony Blair was elected. From what little I know, it looks as if it may even go back to Thatcher, and I speculate that most of this is the result of the relationship developed in WWII.

But perhaps someone with more political and historical expertise can shed some light on the subject.

No need to apologise. I am sorry for tending to start acusing people of ignorance so quickly.

I am absolutly not in the possition of making a judgement over British political history and it`s developments into the 21st century. I can merely make conclusions out of what I read from foreign press reports on the UK. And what I read from that creates the image of a xenophobic, unefficiant and broken society with and opportunistic elite running the political and economic field who are unwilling to take responsibility for their own failures.

[Minimalist]

It's a serious issue and it requires serious discussion not the kind of blind stampede which happened in the aftermath of 9-11. How many lives are worth the rampant intrusion of government eavesdropping?

We never had that discussion and Manning and Snowden have shown that it is high time we did so.

[Minimalist]

I might add that in the US it does seem to be the one issue that can get at least a few republicunts to break with the party line.

[Napoléon]

My point being: France is not giving up it`s sovereignty and it`s citizens rights to be fucked arround with by the NSA with the consent of the French goverment.

Nope, the NSA just spies on them unwillingly