Yeah I sort of thought that's its legitimate purpose (as opposed to domestic surveillance).

Yes, this is what it's chartered to do.

Now, there exists a group of people, of which Assange is one (as far as I can tell), who believe that spying is wrong, and governmental secrecy is wrong. Thus this particular Wikileaks release, and, afaict, a lot of the Wikileaks effort has gone into promulgating that ideological goal. I would note that governmental transparency is pursued by multiple political groups across the US spectrum: police transparency, foreign policy transparency, purchasing transparency, etc. It's not a simple bijective mapping between the thought-movement Assange is with and the goal of governmental transparency; there are profound nuances and deep variances of goal within the broader 'transparency' ideal.

As for me, I am perfectly content to have the spy game played against heads of state; especially if it keeps down total system instability and human suffering.

I don't think he believes all spying is always wrong, he believes there is a "non linear effect of leaks on unjust systems of governance".

If there's nothing outrageous about the who/why of your spying, you don't have to worry as much about your staff's desire to whistleblow, or the kind of consequences if they do, so you don't have to adopt dysfunctional internal policies trying to prevent leaks. Assange's job is to make leaking in general as safe and easy as possible, so the "secrecy tax" will disproportionately damage the unjust use of secrecy:

> "The more secretive or unjust an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie. This must result in minimization of efficient internal communications mechanisms (an increase in cognitive "secrecy tax") and consequent system-wide cognitive decline resulting in decreased ability to hold onto power as the environment demands adaption."

More loosely though he believes in privacy for individuals (a protection for the weak), with transparency for organizations. Spying on states doesn't violate the former, and I imagine in some cases you could argue it aids the latter.

Spying is illegal in most countries, including the United States. If an Italian spy were caught here stealing Obama's communications he would be put in jail for a lengthy term. If an American spy were caught in Italy they would also be arrested and sent to jail. This whole concept that it's OK for my country to spy on others is strange and hypocritical. It is not heroic, legal, or moral, to spy on other countries unless there has been a declaration of war.

No, the most common treatment of a spy acting under diplomatic cover (and that is the most common kind of spy) is simply to tell the purported diplomat that he may no longer stay in the host country, now being persona non grata. All countries around the world agree that they need to spy on one another and need to agree to be spied on by one another to make sure that diplomatic statements through official channels are verifiable. National leaders have to know the intentions of other national leaders--it would be irresponsible not to try to know.

AFTER EDIT: To clarify this point a bit, the world of espionage practice distinguishes "operatives" (nationals-employees of the foreign government, who first of all need a visa status even to be in the host country) from "agents" (nationals of the host country, who often have employment status in some sensitive position in the host country's government or armed forces). Yes, the United States and absolutely every country is harsh in its treatment of its own citizens who act as espionage agents directed by the intelligence operatives of foreign countries. Quite a few of the prisoners in the federal SuperMax prison in Colorado are people like John Walker or Robert Hanssen who were paid by the United States taxpayers to handle secret information with discretion and who were pledged by their terms of employment to not have contacts with foreign intelligence operatives at those operatives' direction. Men like that do hard prison time in any country where their activities are discovered. But the foreign operative usually just ends up expelled from the host country, unless there was something illegal in itself about the foreign operative's presence in the host country.

From the release on the Wikileaks site (https://wikileaks.org/nsa-201602/):

"The US government has signed agreements with the UN that it will not engage in such conduct against the UN--let alone its Secretary General."

> The only true international law is the law of the jungle.

Probably you are thinking of the "survival of the fittest", but that doesn't mean only survival of the fittest country, it also means survival of the fittest alliance of countries. In that sense, cooperation and reciprocal help leads to increased chance of success for a country.

When applying to humans, "the law of the jungle" is just half the story. People who are in groups that cooperate well are more likely to survive, too. Humans are social animals, we cooperate to get things done. Just being the fittest one single man does not necessarily make you more successful.

A better model for survival is ecology, which puts a big emphasis on the complex interdependency of species and individuals.

Or, to make an analogy: even if a cancer cell is the most fit to reproduce in the body, it will soon lead to the demise of its own organism and, as a consequence, live shorter than a regular cooperating cell.

>Now, there exists a group of people, of which Assange is one (as far as I can tell), who believe that spying is wrong, and governmental secrecy is wrong.

Let me tell you how to defend against that, because there will always be some of those people. Spy as little as possible, conceal it as much as you can, don't share your spy info to catch drug dealers, in fact, don't use it to prosecute crime at all, use it to stop real terrorist violence in progress and let some other jokers take the credit, use it to fact check diplomatic shenanigans. Spying and policing have zero business together in a free society.

Why don't we let the US/ UK Rule the world then ? I hope you understand which division NSA belongs to

> [...] a group of people, of which Assange is one (as far as I can tell), who believe that spying is wrong [...]

Obviously he doesn't, because he does what many people would consider spying.

I suggest that he has a more nuanced view that some spying is bad, and that you might want to consider that his support for it depends on how it serves the people.

> It's not a simple bijective mapping between the thought-movement Assange is with and the goal of governmental transparency; there are profound nuances [...]

Well, actually, no there aren't. Lying to bypass limits on your mandate is a crime, if not treason.

Yes, spying to promote the interests of the people of the U.S. is legitimate in a world with other states with armies and the occasional bin Laden, etc. That's different from spying to promote the power of the executive, its fave corporations, the spies themselves, their counterparts in other nations, and who knows what else. The government is in theory our employees, and I feel more threatened by these employees who act like our masters than I do by their legitimate targets.

Assange's quote in the OP is all about alleged abuses that I as supposed employer would want to hear about: "Today we showed that UN Secretary General Ban KiMoon's private meetings over how to save the planet from climate change were bugged by a country intent on protecting its largest oil companies. We previously published Hillary Clinton orders that US diplomats were to steal the Secretary General's DNA. The US government has signed agreements with the UN that it will not engage in such conduct against the UN--let alone its Secretary General. It will be interesting to see the UN's reaction, because if the Secretary General can be targetted without consequence then everyone from world leader to street sweeper is at risk."

> The government is in theory our employees

Thought experiment: what would happen if you exercised any discretion in whether to continue employing them, or even how much of your income you pay them?

Interestingly, this thought experiment kinda works for company managers, too (try firing the CEO of a company where you're a minority investor.) Perhaps things converge to a state where, regardless of who's the nominal owner (citizens/stockholders/etc.), we are ruled by mostly unaccountable managers.

While I agree that the NSA acted as intended, I wish to add with a moderately tangential discussion by saying that organizations ought not be viewed under the lens of their chartered purpose, but rather their function.

An organization's function is the set of all its capabilities. We should seek to define the purpose of a state entity by limiting its function via mechanism, rather than by hoping for good people to do the right thing. There is no reliable mechanism by which moral people bubble up to the top of power.

I feel glad today that the NSA acted in promotion of American interests, but I feel that is a incidental exercise of its many capabilities, and so my feelings are fickle.

It's a useful exercise analyzing the actual function of the NSA and comparing it against its charter. Is the NSA doing its chartered job? How well? Is it being effective? Does it have too much actual power?

It certain doesn't seem as if it has effective oversight in this matter, based on comments from congresspeople as to the level of information they are given.

In this instance, it seems as if the NSA is doing their job. In other instances... doesn't seem like it.

I phrased too extremely then. Function should be added as a lens of analysis, but I still think that purpose should not be used in isolation because it leads to discussion with moral expectation, rather than functional expectation.

Well for us, European citizens, the shock is not that the NSA tries, it is that it succeeds. And that our officials are surprised to learn about the attempts.

NSA has a budget larger than the combined spying budget of the Eurozone members, and it's renowned for being very aggressive and constantly pursuing technical improvement. Why would you be surprised that NSA succeeds? How would you stop them?

It's unsurprising that they succeed some of the time. The extent, on the other hand, is another matter.

And here we have Moral Relativism in action... Russia and China are an order of magnitude more oppressive than the US.

Isn't your comment a good example for "Moral Relativism" itself?

No. Moral relativism would be saying "everyone is equally good; we shouldn't judge them because they don't believe in democracy; all cultures are equally valid".