There is
a simple way of judging the adequacy of media: the focus is on Snowden’s
revelations–PRISM, TEMPORA etc.–or on Snowden himself? He is but one in a
great chain of revealers driven by conscience rather than money or oaths; there
will be more revelations given the enormity of the US spying machine on the
world. But, what does it do?
The issue
is not the “freedom of expression” of the revealers, the “whistle-blowers”. If
they reveal the systematic subversion–and “superversion” from above–of all
civil-political and socio-economic human rights, then the denial of the freedom
of expression to machine operators is an obvious and rather small part.
The focus is naive.
Nor is
the intrusion into the privacy of potentially any human being on earth the
issue. Recording all traces, verbal and otherwise, left behind by all of
us, putting them together for a more holistic image and filing it for its
predictive and interventionist value is certainly an “intrusion”. But the basic
problem is, for what?
Not for
law enforcement, to apprehend, arraign in court, punish crimes; not ex post
but ex ante, to intimidate categories, “profiles” and individuals that
might commit anti-USA acts. Before, not after.
We may
not be against health ministries having enough data and medical histories to
issue warnings to categories like “65 and above”. France does that when heat or
flu threaten the population; before, not after. That is benevolent. This US
spying machine, an industry, is not benevolent to targeted categories. It claims
to protect the US majority against potentially violent minority categories at
home and abroad.
Preventing
violence, like disease, sounds legitimate. Both the US and the UK are not
only vulnerable to violence; they have offensive military hitting the enemy
wherever it is before it hits them. They have enemies all over due to the
traumas caused by their colonialism-imperialism. But this machine has a much broader objective.
To
understand the machine better–full understanding is beyond even the operators’
capacity—put the new revelations in contrast with the old. There is COINTELPRO,
FBI’s 1956 Counterintelligence Program-see pakistantoday.com.pk/?p=283667-to
destroy the US Communist Party, and then targeting socialists, labor unionists,
African Americans, American Indians, Latino Americans, Arab Americans,
environmentalists, peace groups, and now Muslim Americans; to liquidate any
challenge.
Five are
racial and ethnic categories protected by human rights against discrimination;
the other five are social groups protected by the human right to freedom of
speech and assembly. The US and imitating allies break the human rights that
protect minorities; a backbone of democracy.
Then the methods:
1.
using mainstream media and
academia to isolate, harass, intimidate and marginalize,
2.
disrupt
internal unity,
3.
handpick
the leadership,
4.
undermine
anything legitimate,
5.
deny it respect, stigmatize
its values,
6.
prevent access to
mainstream media and government agencies,
7.
bleed it
economically,
8.
delegitimize by
distributing dis-misinformation,
9.
infiltrate, intimidate,
harass, entrap, bribe, blackmail, cheat, deceive and lie to subvert and neutralize,
10.
control their agenda from
the inside.
It works;
through fear, killing any mobilization, even thinking. Some violence may be
prevented, some other stimulated. And the USA is stuck with a 19th century
stale political discourse, without renewal.
William
Blum’s Anti-Empire Report (https://www.transcend.org/tms/2013/07/the-anti-empire-report-2/) focuses
on ECHELON, launched in the 1970s with UK-Canada-Australia-New Zealand
to spy on any Internet communication, also on embassies and businesses.
Commercial espionage became a major Echelon activity, for instance, conveying
an innovation in wind energy by the German firm Enercon to the US rival
Kenetech, which patented the stolen innovation. An NSA employee, in
silhouette on German TV, revealed how he had wiretapped the lines between
Enercon’s research lab and factory to pass on the innovation to Kenetech.
Blum
draws the attention to the Swiss company Crypto AG that sold encryption
technology to 120 countries–including Iran, Iraq, Libya, Yugoslavia–for
communication with embassies, military missions, trade offices–and to
the NSA. Switching to another Swiss firm, Gretag Data System AG, did not
help; NSA was there too. And before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003
the US listened in on the UN Secretary General, the UN weapons inspectors and
all the members of the UN Security Council—a fact well known at the time.
Imagine Russia or China doing the same: their UN membership might have been
suspended; but not USA-UK.
Philip
Agee reveals in Inside the Company: CIA Diary that the CIA wrote
editorials and fake news for Latin American media without revealing the source;
then picking it up as genuine, broadcasting all over through the CIA media
channels; eventually picked up in the USA.
Kate
Epstein (counterpunch.org/2013/06/28/total-surveillance)
estimates the US “intelligence community” budget in 2010 at US$ 80b; 70 percent
for private contractors, many with clear commercial interests. The “oversight”
is done by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court; in the last
three years accepting 4,976 requests, denying none. Infiltrating, collecting
information on Occupy is a major activity.
“The 2006
Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA) labels anyone a terrorist who
causes a “loss of profits” to an animal enterprise. For the first time, in this
law, the use of force or violence was removed from the list of criteria of
terrorism. “Loss of profits”, a true “US value”, was in, like for the
many anti-fracking environmental groups.
What is
new about PRISM-TEMPORA, by USA-UK? Der Spiegel (03-07-13) points
to the domain–spying on the whole world, the scope–huge internet operators
involved, and the clear front-line: Anglo-America against the Rest, including
fellow EU members. If done by smaller states, bilateral relations might be
suspended, downgraded, and their EU membership revoked. How long will the USA-UK
get away with impunity?
Johan Galtung. Professor of peace studies,
dr hc mult, is rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University-TPU. He is author of
over 150 books on peace and related issues.
