Ethical Direction

Recently in class we discussed the "Us vs Them" mentality when it comes to spies and digital hacking.  For years now the American government has been advising people not to buy routers that come from China, claiming that there were surveillance back doors built into them and that they weren't safe.  America has been very vocal with their denunciation of China's digital spying.  Fast forward to a few months ago when it was revealed that the NSA was regularly intercepting shipments of American-made routers to open the packages and install their own back doors before sending them to other countries.  This brings up the ethical dilemma that, if it's not okay for others to be doing it, why can we denounce them while doing the exact same thing?  When this question was asked to our guest speaker, his response was "America has done more than any other Country for the benefit of the world, so we're justified in protecting that" which equates to "We're the best so we get to do whatever we want".  This attitude leads to a view of the world being "America is all that matters and anyone that matters should be American" rather than finding peace and a way that everybody can belong and coexist.  As a Canadian here as a foreign student, hearing America's complete hypocrisy on this topic being justified by "We're America the great, so we can do whatever we want" is frankly appalling.