The Snowden revelations contained information about NSA capabilities and/or activities that impacted US citizens and other information about things that seem to be more or less exclusively directed at non US citizens. Most Americans seem to feel that the rights of US citizens and their possible violation are the only issue deserving public debate about American policy. I would like to suggest that there are good reasons why we should be looking beyond that. A good starting point is how the issue is playing out in Germany.
Ally and Target: US Intelligence Watches Germany Closely
The US military compound in Griesheim, near Frankfurt, is secured with a tall wire fence topped with barbed wire. The buildings are relatively modest and surrounded by large areas of green space, which has long led local residents to suspect that many of those working at the facility spend much of their time underground -- and that they are engaged in espionage.
According to internal NSA information, which SPIEGEL has seen, the agency's European Cryptologic Center (ECC) is headquartered in Griesheim. A 2011 NSA report indicates that the ECC is responsible for the "largest analysis and productivity in Europe." According to the report, results from the secret installation find their way into the President's Daily Brief, the daily intelligence report given to US President Barack Obama, an average of twice a week.
Germany is a special place for the NSA, in many respects. Few other countries are the source of as much data for US intelligence agencies, much of which comes from the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany's foreign intelligence agency. At the same time Germany itself, despite all friendly assurances to the contrary, is also a target of the surveillance. According to a "secret" summary among the documents obtained by Snowden, which SPIEGEL was able to view, Germany is one of the targets of US espionage activity.
The US isn't just scooping up information from the internet operating from Ft. Mead. It is using a base that is a cold war relic to conduct operations that may be hostile to German interests on German soil. At the very least that sounds rather rude. Of course the standard US response is that all of this is concerned with nothing other than keeping the world safe from terrorism.
However Hayden, a four-star general who is now retired, does not deny that the NSA is involved in espionage. "We steal secrets. We're number one in it," he says." But, he adds, this is not malicious or industrial espionage. "We steal stuff to make you safe, not to make you rich."
The Germans are supposed to trust the US even though US law puts no constraints on operations conducted outside the US. Some sort of treaty between the US and Germany provides the authority for the remaining military bases, but when they were established during the cold war West Germany was in no position to impose restrictions.
The notion that the US only has obligations to its own citizens reflects an essentially imperialistic attitude. It goes back to the time when Roman citizens had rights and privileges that barbarians did not. Every empire since then has followed a similar path. At the height of the cold war the nations of Western Europe saw benefits to be gained from the NATO alliance as a force to oppose that of the Warsaw Pact. The USSR and the Warsaw Pact are long gone. The greatest threat that Germany faces from Russia today is that Putin might raise the price on their gas and oil.
Since 9/11 the US has attempted to use the threat of terrorism as a justification for its continued imperial reach. The potential harm that might be inflicted by terrorists really doesn't rise to the level of Soviet nukes and tanks. NATO has not gone out of business and the US has with mixed success used it as a vehicle for international support of its military activities. It played in Afghanistan but not in Iraq.
The attitude of the president and other government officials is that spying on foreigners is standard business and nothing that Americans should get upset about. They seem to think that the foreigners have no right to question their activities even when some of them are being conducted on their soil. Do we consider the entire world to be composed of enemies from which the American people must be protected? Are our claims of alliance and friendship without substance?
As an American citizen I think that there are self interested reasons for me to be concerned about this cavalier approach. One of them is that we must live in an ever more globalized world and the US economic dominance is on the decline. But just from the point of view of concern for the protection of such rights as I do have under the US constitution, I feel less confident in trusting a government that views everybody else as barbarians at the gate.