"Today's cyber-hypocrisy is almost intolerable, and all of
those rightly outraged over mega snooping are advised to be suspicious of the
powers, and the powerful, who make a show of being defenders and advocates of Internet
freedom. For in this case, we certainly have a
case of the pot calling the kettle black, the 'kettles' being the Western
democracies."
An former NSA listening station at the Teufelsberg hill in Berlin: According to secret U.S. documents quoted by Der Spiegel, the United States, in a typical month, taps half a billion phone calls, e-mails and text messages in Germany, and has categorized its biggest European ally as a 'target similar to China.'
PRISM and Tempora, two programs that bring a flush of anger to many
people's faces, are now on everyone's lips. The extent of espionage against
innocent citizens appears to be gigantic - just as gigantic as is the hypocrisy
practiced by a number of countries in this context.
Let's
not kid ourselves: Spies will spy, and seek to maintain,
by all means available, the status quo set by their governments, thus trying to gain the advantage for
their nation - or what they consider to be their nation - over others. Data
snooping by the U.S., and to an even greater extent by Great Britain, is
nothing if not the logical consequence of this.
When
German chancellor expresses tentative outrage about snooping done by her
"friends," a person of sound mind can only be explain it by supposing
that she thinks her former East Germany never spied on the USSR, and that the
world is the same as it was then - both of which are nonsense, of course. Even
the Stasi tried to obtain information from Moscow - in particular, just before
the fall of the eastern bloc.
In
the West, there is a tradition of spying on friends: the CIA, the BND, the MI5 - whatever the clubs are called - have long
stretched their tentacles as far as possible into the uppermost echelons of
power in their partner countries, while ordinary citizens have only been spied
upon when they had special abilities or held special posts.
Today,
by contrast, hundreds of officers at Anglo-Saxon intelligence services are
dedicated to the task of sifting through the unbelievable blob of data sucked
up on a daily basis by Tempora. Sound scary? A nation that distinguishes
itself as a defender of freedom of information by allowing Edward Snowden to
enter the country, is itself the employer of a cyber army of 100,000 that it
uses to spy on its own citizens and their contacts abroad, shutting down
communication channels randomly, and for the occasional pleasure it takes
locking up people for posting rebellious comments on Twitter (does anyone
remember the Jasmine Revolution?). Yes, it's clear now: We're referring to
China.
After
China reviled the United States as the greatest present-day villain (a noisy
and welcomed distraction from their own misbehavior), Snowden, rightly admired
for his courage, fled to the arms of the next most oppressive regime, Russia.
The state in which Vladimir Putin just installed himself as a present-day czar;
the country that just put in place a prohibition on speaking realistically or
positively about homosexuality, and where a Russian-dominated fascist
pan-Slavism cheerfully celebrates its vengeance, allows the American refugee to
take a break from his escape in the extraterritorial transit area of its
capital's airport before he continues on to what will probably be Ecuador.
Posted By
Worldmeets.US
Ah,
yes, Ecuador. The Andean nation has stowed WikiLeaks chief Julian Assange in
its London embassy, and now apparently intends to take Snowden in as well. It
would be nice if inconvenient characters in their own country were treated so
tolerantly. Despite alleged progress, members of the indigenous population in
particular are subject to brutal treatment by security forces, and neither is
freedom of the press in the best shape. Even if, for example, four reporters
sentenced to prison time were pardoned by the president. The fact that
journalists even have to be pardoned is alarming enough.
And
on the way to Ecuador, Snowden is to supposedly make a stop in Cuba.Yet another bastion of freedom and human
rights.
This
entire farce glaringly highlights the disconnect between government and
citizens - not just in one country, but around the world, including in the
West, which is particularly worrisome. When a scandal of this magnitude breaks,
no salutary shock is to be expected: those, who were betrayed (not the citizens,
but the intelligence agencies!) are hopping mad. Meanwhile, those who benefit
politically would like to, and will, milk the situation for its propaganda
value to the utmost.
This
includes totalitarian regimes and even a Sarah Palin, who presents herself as a
defender of citizens' privacy when she criticizes the Obama Administration. If
she were vice president now, she would no doubt demand Edward Snowden's head
and happily hang in her living room next to her other hunting trophies, because
PRISM was approved by both parties, both houses of the U.S. legislature, and by
the U.S. courts.
Today's
cyber-hypocrisy is almost intolerable, and all of those rightly outraged over
mega snooping are advised to be suspicious of powers, and the powerful, who
make a show of being defenders and advocates of Internet freedom. For in this case, we certainly have a case of the pot calling the kettle
black, and with the "kettles" - namely the Western democracies -
having at hand clear standards, laws, and credible oversight of the snoopers.
With these they could once again become what they increasingly only wish they
could be: bastions of freedom deserving of the name.
