The point of the "game" is to induce a chilling effect on private conversations to limit the available discourse about decisions. The French President becomes afraid not to just make a particular decision, but also to even discuss it. It should be obvious that knowledge of spying changes bevahior during diplomatic relations.
This gives inordinate power to organizations that have greater spying capability--the United States with its NSA will have more influence in global affairs than France, even if we both have one vote in the UN security council.
Whether this has "always gone on", though, is irrelevant to whether it is antithetical to democracy.
> The French President becomes afraid not to just make a particular decision, but also to even discuss it.
I doubt the French President or any world leader is so cowed by the premise of NSA spying that it paralyzes them into inaction and submission. Paranoid people on the internet who think that the CIA might black-bag them for typing "Snowden" into Google may be that naive, but the actual political elites are likely far more aware of, and accepting of, the global surveillance network than you or I.
>Whether this has "always gone on", though, is irrelevant to whether it is antithetical to democracy.
That's true, but an assertion of a global political chilling effect remains speculative at best. If anything, the constant leaks about NSA spying seems to have the opposite effect.
Yes, but I don't buy into the premise of French (or any particular government's) policy being primarily influenced or directed by a chilling effect created by NSA spying.
As a public figure a president is very vulnerable unless he has absolutely nothing to hide from the public, IMHO, but he is only vulnerable as soon as he knows he is spied on. Which happened here.
Anyone in that position who doesn't assume they're being spied on at all times, or who would let that realization intimidate them, doesn't deserve the job.
The US president is listening to the current French president conversations, while the current French president is listening to the former French president conversations.
Better than in the 90s, whent he French president was using his anti-terrorist powers to listen to the conversations of good looking TV stars!
> This gives inordinate power to organizations that have greater spying capability--the United States with its NSA will have more influence in global affairs than France, even if we both have one vote in the UN security council.
This gives inordinate power to organizations that have greater spying capability--the United States with its NSA will have more influence in global affairs than France, even if we both have one vote in the UN security council.
Whether this has "always gone on", though, is irrelevant to whether it is antithetical to democracy.