Orwell’s “Big Brother” seems like a fairy tale compared to what we are learning these days about the giant surveillance networks that record every aspect of people – common people, celebrities and even state leaders. The technological advances unfortunately allow secret services, state and parastatal mechanisms to monitor every corner of the planet, under the guise of security.
A parallel, uncontrollable by many universe exists in the absence of political institutions, without any democratic legitimacy, controlling all of our lives. With the admirable cooperation of multinational internet and telecommunications giants, they can intrude in on our private and public life whenever they want, subverting democracy under the pretext of protecting it.
The operation of American surveillance networks, which are clearly the tip of the iceberg, became known thanks to the sensibilities and self-sacrifice of one young man, Edward Snowden, who risked his life to begin unraveling this thread of shocking revelations. But obviously the American super-spies are not alone.
Nearly all governments follow similar practices, more or less and according to each one’s capabilities. A parallel and uncontrollable state within a state, hiding behind familiar and unfamiliar secret service acronyms, decides who is considered a suspect, who will be targeted on a daily basis by being bugged. Huge quantities of personal data are being recorded daily without any control and are used at will, from people who answer to no one, aside from their occasional bosses.
It is high time that the political leaders who created them that the monsters will not shy away from anyone. The European leaders divd this out when they realized that they cannot hide away from the mechanisms they bread. As necessary and beneficiary as this technological advancement might be for our life, it can be just as dangerous when left uncontrolled.
Individual and democratic rights that were established after centuries of struggles, to be ensured in writing by the constitutions and laws are being thwarted by the backdoors left by political authorities. Democracy has the right and duty to defend itself against those who subvert it on a daily basis. It is the duty of political leaders to eliminate the monsters they created as soon as possible.
TO VIMA
