The Orwellian Nightmare
The Edward Snowden saga, playing out like a thrilling espionage drama, could very well beat the likes of Ian Fleming and John le Carre. The startling disclosures about NSA and its privacy-invasive techniques have no doubt triggered a widespread debate on the pressing matter at hand. Are we living in an Orwellian state? Is there no such thing called user privacy? Is USA the Big Brother watching over every single move of the public?
We do spend increasing amounts of time online; and while the concept of privacy has blurred the lines of what can be considered public and private, we have definitely gotten past the initial reluctance to freely share stuff what we like on the Internet, thus making technology giants like Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Microsoft and Apple colossal data-mines, worth not only for the companies' revenue generation but also for figuring out user habits online. It's precisely this complacency that drove whistleblower and NSA contract worker Snowden to take this drastic step of leaking the documents (initially to the Washington Post, and then to the Guardian). He feared the public have come to accept that they have no right to privacy in the digital age.
Since then there have been more revelations that the USA spied on its EU allies, hacked several Chinese mobile-phones companies, and that the British intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) was not far behind NSA when it came to snooping on diplomats from Turkey and South Africa at the G20 summit four years ago. If GCHQ has defended the actions as indispensable, German and French governments have reacted strongly to the mass surveillance, demanding the NSA cease these activities immediately. The USA, for its part, had been quick to (predictably) label Snowden a spy (and possibly working for China), when he should have been hailed a hero for disclosing the gargantuan scale of eavesdropping employed by the US government on Americans and other people across the world.
"I could not do this without accepting the risk of prison. You can't come up against the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and not accept the risk. If they want to get you, over time they will... I think the sense of outrage that has been expressed is justified. It has given me hope that, no matter what happens to me, the outcome will be positive for America. I do not expect to see home again, though that is what I want." - Edward Snowden in the Q&A with Guardian.
But Indians may have something new to worry about, for the world's largest democracy is all set to have its own PRISM like snooping program called Central Monitoring System to monitor and intercept telephone calls, email messages, and communications on the Internet. Though the extent of this program is not clear, critics say it's an an abuse of privacy rights. For all the risks Snowden took (he is currently holed up at a Russian airport and has received asylum offers from Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia), my only hope is that the real issue is addressed instead of focusing on the man himself.
We do spend increasing amounts of time online; and while the concept of privacy has blurred the lines of what can be considered public and private, we have definitely gotten past the initial reluctance to freely share stuff what we like on the Internet, thus making technology giants like Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Microsoft and Apple colossal data-mines, worth not only for the companies' revenue generation but also for figuring out user habits online. It's precisely this complacency that drove whistleblower and NSA contract worker Snowden to take this drastic step of leaking the documents (initially to the Washington Post, and then to the Guardian). He feared the public have come to accept that they have no right to privacy in the digital age.
Since then there have been more revelations that the USA spied on its EU allies, hacked several Chinese mobile-phones companies, and that the British intelligence agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) was not far behind NSA when it came to snooping on diplomats from Turkey and South Africa at the G20 summit four years ago. If GCHQ has defended the actions as indispensable, German and French governments have reacted strongly to the mass surveillance, demanding the NSA cease these activities immediately. The USA, for its part, had been quick to (predictably) label Snowden a spy (and possibly working for China), when he should have been hailed a hero for disclosing the gargantuan scale of eavesdropping employed by the US government on Americans and other people across the world.
"I could not do this without accepting the risk of prison. You can't come up against the world's most powerful intelligence agencies and not accept the risk. If they want to get you, over time they will... I think the sense of outrage that has been expressed is justified. It has given me hope that, no matter what happens to me, the outcome will be positive for America. I do not expect to see home again, though that is what I want." - Edward Snowden in the Q&A with Guardian.
But Indians may have something new to worry about, for the world's largest democracy is all set to have its own PRISM like snooping program called Central Monitoring System to monitor and intercept telephone calls, email messages, and communications on the Internet. Though the extent of this program is not clear, critics say it's an an abuse of privacy rights. For all the risks Snowden took (he is currently holed up at a Russian airport and has received asylum offers from Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia), my only hope is that the real issue is addressed instead of focusing on the man himself.
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