Great power should come with great responsibility but when it comes to a government great power is used only to multiply it. The recent revelation of Pegasus snooping has just scratched years of history of government surveillance and spying on its own citizens. A democratic government tries to become authoritarian and an authoritarian government tends to acquire more authority to be in power for a longer time. It is time to know how nations across the globe used the same tactics with different technology for mass surveillance. It is time to see the ugly face of our government.
A group of 17 outstanding media organizations has uncovered an unethical web of worldwide surveillance reportedly done by government agencies via Israeli spyware “Pegasus”. The investigative journalism initiative named “Pegasus Project” consists of 17 media houses worldwide revealing this surveillance scandal. The Guardian, Le Monde, Die Zeit, The Washington Post, Knack, Le Soir, The Wire, and Daraj are some prominent media names that a world-shattering secret was revealed that told us our own government was snooping upon its own citizens.
Phone numbers of 50000 people have appeared in the list obtained in this investigation as targets of surveillance. Among those people, many of them are journalists, activists, dissidents, political opponents, lawyers, and even presidents and prime ministers. France President Emmanuel Macron, the Pakistani prime minister, and the South African president are among 14 world leaders who appeared on the list. Those were supposed to be targeted by enemy nations which is a matter of international diplomacy but thousands of other people whose numbers are on the list were chosen by their own government for surveillance and that is horrific. India, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Morocco, Bahrain, etc. are among those nations who have attempted to use Israeli Pegasus software to spy on citizens who have been vocal against their government.
The Pegasus revelation is massive but this is not new however this is the farthest step so far in tech surveillance. Pegasus made headlines globally and has become the center of demonstration in many countries because of its powerful technology that allows anyone to enter your phone without you knowing and can leak almost everything from your phone. Reports keep coming from time to time about spying on citizens by their government but after pegasus, it is time to debate, analyze and investigate the unethical web of surveillance.
China, the USA, and Israel are among the top nations where multiple companies are creating robust spying software and selling them all around the world. Governments buy this software sometimes officially to counter the threat of terrorism. Sometimes they use it for that purpose but mostly they are interested in entering our device to listen to our talks and track our activities.
Government Surveillance in India
A report published in The Hindu in 2019 showed concern about government surveillance and data collection. The absence of awareness among common citizens allows the government to access any kind of personal data tracking activities on the internet. An independent investigative media Cobra Post has conducted a sting operation (know more) where they revealed that Paytm, a fin-tech company, agreed to provide all the data they had about the citizens including their personal information to the government.
In the Pegasus report also India has registered its name remarkably using the software for mass surveillance.
Mass surveillance is an open secret in China
Some countries like China have already imposed open surveillance on their citizens. The state has developed far more advanced data storage methods and tools that make it easier to access almost every piece of data from its citizens. Almost every Chinese person uses WeChat which can perform messaging services, finance, booking taxis, and as a personal ID as well. Every action on this app directly can be accessed by the authority, even the messages you send to your friends. There are a few instances where some words or chats automatically get deleted while chatting by the authority which they think is inappropriate. They have developed sophisticated face recognition systems that can track a person among 1.3 billion of its people.
China is more of an authoritarian state and snooping on its citizens is an open secret but countries like the USA with a chest-thumping declaration of being the world’s greatest and oldest democracy can't keep themselves away from citizen surveillance.
The shocking revelation of Edward Snowden and Thomas Drake
Few years before Edward Snowden another American whistleblower Thomas A. Drake revealed some classified information about two NSA projects “Trailblazer” and “Thin Thread”. Drake served his nation in the Airforce and Navy and was associated with these projects as well which he found were used as tools against American citizens by gathering private information without them knowing. He felt it was the worst spying scandal in American history.
Thomas Drake revealed the nature of spying by the NSA against US citizens for the first time on such a scale and that motivated Edward Snowden who went further deep in the webbed unethical practice of NSA of citizen surveillance. Snowden was working for the National Security Agency(NSA) as an IT consultant who contributed to running some marquee software such as PRISM which he later told the media was used for spying on American citizens and other nationals as well. PRIMS software could access all the Google and Yahoo accounts of Americans. Another software he revealed details of was Tempora. It was developed by the UK and run by NSA and British agency GCHQ. A USA telecom company Verizon was bound to hand over the daily call records to NSA. Snowden also mentioned “XKeyscore” an analytical software that could track almost any activity of a user on the internet and could hack any email address on the planet. MUSCULAR was another surveillance program of the same kind used by the NSA. He also revealed about LOVEINT software which was used to track down the love interests of NSA employees peeking into their personal lives.
The repressive methods of Stasi
The Snowden revelation was extraordinary. Many of them were denied by NSA and other US authorities but the details Snowden produced were able to present a detailed but horrific picture of surveillance. According to him, an NSA employee could watch any of the targets in any given country 24×7 every time they are near a laptop, mobile phone, or any other such devices. All the surveillance software developed in the name of counter-terrorism was being highly misused and affecting countless personal relations. All these surveillance programs were illegal and many programs had to shut down after the Snowden revelations.
Developing a system of surveillance and keeping a complete detailed record of the daily activities of citizens is not a new phenomenon for the government. A more cruel and in-depth surveillance program history was witnessed in the 1950s when the German Democratic Republic or East Germany formed a State Security Service which is commonly known as Stasi. It is known as the most repressive and effective secret service program ever created. Stasi was widely spread across the nation using informers in every corner. Almost 50000 informers were working for Stasi at them and they cover almost every activity of the target which may seem quite mundane in general. At the time camera technology was in the evolution phase and they brought almost every newest of them and installed them in every possible place from shops to homes, books, purses, and bedrooms. They had records of almost everything of their citizens from brushing their teeth to having sex with their partners. Detailed documents of photographs were uncovered after the reunification of Germany and the end of the Stasi. In this report of The Guardian, you can see how the Stasi deeply penetrated into the lives of citizens.
In the modern world, although Stasi does not exist in such ways, there are several covert operations and programs run by several governments misusing the surveillance software for their own interest. With high dependence on electronic devices and poor knowledge of security and privacy protection to the common users it is quite easy for the government and agencies to infect the device and collect any information they need. From time to time revelations about spy programs of software such as Pegasus or PRISM keep coming out and they shatter global politics for some time but this would never stop until common citizens stand up against privacy theft and illegal surveillance by their own government and demand for such effective laws and transparency in government administration.
No comments:
Post a Comment