Nations Should Quickly Heed Advice of Greenwald, Assange (La Jornada, Mexico)
"The spying perpetrated by Washington is not only illegal, but disloyal. ... Beyond that, however, it gives Washington privileged information that puts it in a superior position during any economic or diplomatic negotiation. ... If one considers that U.S. information technology platforms are infected with government and private espionage mechanisms, as shown in documents obtained by WikiLeaks and published in La Jornada, it is imperative to seek and develop our own platforms and alternatives to those of the United States."
In
reference to the scandal about spying by U.S. government agencies on the
governments, institutions, companies and individuals in many countries,
journalist Glenn Greenwald, who has published classified material obtained by former
analyst Edward Snowden, talks of the need to eradicate U.S. dominance of the
Internet and form groups of nations to operate independent paths of access to
the Worldwide Web. The Guardian
reporter has suggested that Argentina and Brazil, as well as the European Union, would
be well advised to build their own Internet - something only China has done so
far. Meanwhile, Edward Snowden, being pursued by Washington, has taken refuge
in Russia.
As
you may recall, last September 1, Brazil's TV
Globo handed this newspaper a secret National
Security Agency document, confirming that the agency intercepted confidential
communications of [Brazil] President DilmaRousseff and our government's chief executive Enrique Peña Nieto when he was still a candidate for the presidency.
This led to protests from both countries. In the case of our government, it was
inexplicably lukewarm. In the case of Brazil it has been very strong, as could be
seen in Rousseff's recent speech before the U.N. General
Assembly.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
This
isn't much ado about nothing, when one considers that spying perpetrated by Washington
is not only illegal, but disloyal, given that it is directed against countries that
the U.S. government publicly embraces as allies and friends. Beyond that,
however, it gives Washington privileged information that puts it in a superior
position during any economic or diplomatic negotiation, which constitutes a severe
threat to the national security of the nations that are victim to its
surveillance.
Significantly,
on September 26, during a video conference with Julian Assange and a group of
Cuban journalists and bloggers, the WikiLeaks creator pointed out that there
can be no sense of national self-determination without sovereignty of
information.
If
one considers that U.S. platforms for information technology are infected with government
and private espionage mechanisms, as shown in documents obtained by WikiLeaks
and published in La Jornada
on September 3, the points made by Assange and Greenwald acquire their full
significance - and even urgency.
Moreover,
given the servile attitudes that characterized the Felipe Calderón
government, whose public security secretary, GenaroGarcía Luna, offered the U.S. government all security
information in possession of Mexican authorities, it is evident that the confidentiality
of government, institutional, business, and private data in our country, has
been gravely compromised by the spying activities of the government and Internet
giants of our neighboring country.
In
this context, it is necessary and imperative to seek and develop, within the
context of Latin American integration, our own platforms and alternatives to
those of the United States, as Greenwald indicated. This is a necessary step
toward constructing the sovereignty of information without which, as Assange said,
self-determination is no longer inconceivable.
