The surveillance state is terrified of this man
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has criticised NSA whistleblower Ed Snowden for “misuse” of government data.
Excuse me?
What about the galactic-scale misuse of private data by the US National Security Agency (NSA) where Snowden recently worked?
South Africans should realise by now that all of their emails and potentially other electronic communications reside on a giant server somewhere in the US for possible scrutiny at a later stage. Try as you might to live an honourable life, that angry and ill-conceived email you wrote five years ago to a former boss or ex-wife could be dredged up some time in the future to paint you in a particularly unflattering light. South Africans should also realise that our own intelligence agencies standardly break the law by snooping without warrants, as the Mail and Guardian reported.
Some congressmen in the US are calling for Snowden’s arrest for treason, while Mr Apprentice himself, Donald Trump, thinks he should be assassinated. Even more shocking is the response from US media outlets, more concerned with investigating Snowden’s personal life than the staggering revelations of government abuse he has disclosed to the world (and, by all accounts, will continue to do).
Recently, Spain, Portugal and France prevented over-flight of a plane carrying Bolivian president Evo Morales on the grounds that it was believed to be also carrying Snowden, which it was not. These same countries were quite happy to allow suspected “terrorists” to be renditioned (for torture) over their air space by the CIA, but not the president of a peaceful nation.
The surveillance state is terrified. It will not go down without a fight. A principle of investigative journalism: he who protests the loudest has most to hide. Bear that in mind next time you hear shrill defence of the surveillance state. Where is the evidence that any of this mass snooping has made us any safer, other than pompous assurances from self-serving intelligence apparatchiks? Civil libertarians have long arued that the state amplifies fears over terror and crime to arrogate unto itself greater and more draconian powers. Hence, the “war on terror,” “war on drugs,” “war on poverty.” Unwinnable wars, all of them, but unarguably noble and saleable to the gullible. To win these wars, the state needs access to our emails and phone calls. It needs to know where we live and where we bank, hence the ridiculous RICA and FICA laws.
But surely if you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear? That’s the standard argument of politicians and bureaucrats who sup at the trough of trashed civil liberties. The answer to that is: what about the presumption of innocence, embodied in common law for centuries? There is indeed a war going on here, but not the one we’re told. That war is between liberty and tyranny, between ruler and ruled. It manifests itself in many ways, such as surveillance cameras, FICA, RICA, ID documents. We accept these encroachments as if they are normal, believing they somehow serve our interests.
What about the crime-fighting surveillance cameras in Johannesburg and Cape Town, or those placed in residential developments? That’s a matter for residents to decide, and on the face of it does not constitute an invasion of privacy. Grabbing your emails without permission certainly does. That’s private property, protected by the Constitution.
It’s time to turn the surveillance apparatus on those in power. These, after all, are public servants we employ and they have forfeited their right to privacy by acceptance of office. We have not.
Section 14 of the Bill of Rights entrenches the right to privacy:
“Everyone has the right to privacy, which includes the right not to have :
a) their person or home searched;
b) their property searched;
c) their possessions seized; or
d) the privacy of their communications infringed.
Remember this any time you hear a politician or political lackey defend the right to snoop on your emails and phone calls, or to prevent disclosure of their misbehaviour. I’m all in favour of the press being accountable, of the Press Ombud, defamation laws and other remedies for those who have been wronged. The problem is the law is used aggressively by those in power to silence exposure of their wrong-doing.
Continues at source.