Countries Which Want to Rein In NSA Spying Collectively Have Bigger Economies than the U.S. and Its Spy Buddies

21 Nations Line Up Behind UN Effort To Stop NSA

Foreign Policy reports that 21 nations have joined the push for the adoption of a United Nations General Resolution protecting internet privacy against NSA spying.

They include the following nations:  Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, France, Germany, Guyana, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Liechtenstein, Mexico, Norway, Paraguay, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, and Uruguay.

Those names don’t mean too much in a vacuum … so let’s look at the size of their economies (using International Monetary Fund figures for 2012):

TOTAL: $15,866,168 (remember: all figures in this post are in millions.)

In comparison, the U.S. – the world’s largest economy – has a GDP of $16,244,575 … larger than the 21 countries.

 The Five Eyes - US Spy partners (Echelon)

But we can’t look at this fight in a vacuum … the rest of the “Five Eyes” of allied spies – Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand – are backing the U.S.  As is Israel (and see this).

So let’s add them to the U.S. side of the ledger:

TOTAL: $22,511,696

Russia and China

But China and Russia hate NSA spying so much that they have joined the  new BRICS consortium – along with India, Brazil and South Africa – which is building its own Internet infrastructure to avoid NSA spying.

So let’s add them to the total opposing NSA spying:

TOTAL: $26,116,996

The bottom line is that there is currently more money aligned against U.S. spying than for it.

Notes: The above analysis is admittedly over-simplified.  But it still shows the general shift of economic power away from American spy imperialism.