The National Security Agency routinely shares raw intelligence data with Israel without first sifting it to remove information about US citizens, a top-secret document provided to the Guardian by whistleblower Edward Snowden reveals.The NSA says that they trust the Israelis to delete any sensitive information about American citizens and not even read it. Because the Israelis said that they would.
Ya, sure, you betcha.
Only an idiot would trust a spy agency to adhere to its word. There is no honor among spies.
Say, for discussion, that the Israelis look through the data and find out that a straight-laced American politician, one who is not a reliable vote for them, has a boyfriend on the side. Say that the politician is married to a woman. Which do you think will happen: (a) The Israelis say "oh, we can't do anything with this, we promised the NSA"; or (b) The Israelis use that information as leverage.
Another possibility is that the NSA is deliberately giving the Israelis raw data on Americans so that the Israelis can do the sort of analysis that the NSA is not supposed to do. There have been persistent allegations that the NSA already has a similar arrangement with the other members of the Five Eyes cabal.
The articles on this story all note that Israel has, of all nations who spy on us, one of the more aggressive collection efforts going, right up there with China and Russia and only exceeded by the NSA itself. So isn't handing intelligence data to the Israelis like a 7-11 owner standing at the door to the store and giving out cash to known thieves?
Hey, if I've learned anything from teabaggers, trying to stop Israel's government from blackmailing American politicians is anti-semitism!
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