By M D Nalapat
Snowden
did a public service by showing how exposed the global population is to
those state agencies with overwhelming mastery over the worldwide web.
Sensible
governments stay away from interference with the internet, save with
those exceptional bits and pieces that expose those involved (or are
about to be) in matters such as child molestation and terrorism. There
certainly are intemperate comments, including sometimes at this
columnist, but this is no reason to seek to enforce a blackout. Of
course, it may be argued that those who post abusive messages should
reveal their true identities. While internet addresses give clues as to
the source of specific missives, those proficient in hacking are aware
that mimicking an address is adolescent play. An individual trained in
techniques of manipulating the internet could post a message from Manila
and show its internet protocol address as being from Mumbai. Edward
Snowden did a public service by showing how exposed the global
population is to those state agencies with overwhelming mastery over the
worldwide web. Barack Obama lectured several countries on the need for
transparency and the toleration of dissent, but when it came to similar
deeds targeting his own administration, the then US President imposed
the severest of penalties. The military technician who transferred data
to WikiLeaks on US Air Force strikes on innocent civilians was sent to
an underground prison and released only after an incarceration lasting
several years. Bloggers in Egypt, who followed her line on Arab
politics, were hailed as heroes by Hillary Clinton, but those who dared
to fall foul of the Secretary’s wishes soon saw themselves being hit by
criminal charges. It is particularly nauseating that a country such as
Sweden, which preens itself on being “liberal”, slapped criminal charges
on Julian Assange and forced him to take shelter in a South American
embassy in London. The UK establishment, itself always ready to lecture
on the importance of freedom of speech and the need to expose
wrongdoing, has since behaved towards Assange with all the sensitivity
of North Korea. Bradley Manning, Julian Assange and Edward Snowden
exemplify in their deeds the devotion to freedom and justice that figure
so frequently in the speeches of diplomats and officials from the
countries persecuting all three, including “liberal” Sweden and “freedom
loving” countries such as the US and the UK.
Senior officials within the Washington Beltway, have sought to cast
Julian Assange and his website as a KGB (sorry, FSB) tool. Although
there were those who argued for India to offer asylum to Assange and
Snowden, it was clear that this was an impossibility, given the
cowardice of the Lutyens Zone so far as Uncle Sam or other major powers
are concerned. Besides, as can be seen from the way retired officials
strategically planted in Right to Information tribunals have smothered
the outing of information on several aspects of governmental
functioning, the bureaucracy in India believes that the only information
needing to be shared with the public is the day, month and year, or in
extreme circumstances, the time of day. Neither was it a surprise that
Bradley Manning was placed in a US prison and had his (or now her) life
ruined. The “crime” was to act in a manner contrary to the Foundation
Axiom of NATO, which is that the alliance is incapable of wrongdoing,
hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths caused by its interventions in
just the 21st century notwithstanding. If US Air Force pilots killed
individuals, who were obvious non-combatants in Iraq, the way their
predecessors had gunned down helpless villagers in Vietnam, the fault
lay in those who got killed, for they should not have left their homes
while US aircraft were hovering nearby in strike mode. In the meantime,
the contrived noise over Russia that has arisen across both sides of the
Atlantic, obscures such other events as who in the US system ensured
that almost the entire list of important CIA moles in China was exposed
to the Chinese Communist Party, who made short work of them. In the case
of India, an outed CIA spy is usually allowed to migrate to the US and
enjoy the benefits of his service to the agency. The Chinese have a
different approach. Those that are caught are given such a treatment,
that what was administered to Bradley Manning would have resembled a
school picnic. It does not take much IQ to figure out which approach
best ensures that a country rids itself of the risk of its own officials
becoming agents of foreign countries.
The outing and punishment of CIA agents in China took place during
the precise interval when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State and her
confidant Leon Panetta was Director of the CIA. The latter would have
had access to the true names of key US agents in China, and would have
shared it with the then Secretary of State, being a 99.99% Clinton
loyalist. Did that list end up in Secretary Clinton’s emails emanating
out of the Clinton Foundation, mails that could easily have been hacked
and which contained secret information? Few would accuse Hillary Clinton
of knowingly revealing lists of spies to Beijing or to any other alien
capital, but as yet the FBI has shown little enthusiasm in finding out
exactly what hyper-sensitive emails could potentially have been exposed
through being sent by the Beltway Czarina on a private server, including
from Huma Abedin to Anthony Wiener. Did they include the lists
containing the names of US spies? Rather than blame machine failure for
the leak, it would have been logical for the FBI to have exhaustively
examined how the names of the CIA’s key agents within the secretive
Chinese establishment got revealed to Beijing. Equally, it would have
been logical for the US media to zero in on this breach of security.
However, given the obsession with bringing down President Donald Trump a
la Richard Nixon, the spy list story has disappeared from media in the
US. And of course, within the lynch mob surrounding Trump, few have
questioned how and why establishments such as Washington, London and
Stockholm that claim to respect freedoms and the right to information
have taken such vicious action against those few who tested that vow in
practice.
http://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/9637-freedom-speech-rest-peace
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