If you’re following the Edward Snowden story then you’re seeing something that’s almost exciting as a film – but without the pictures – unless you count the one of aircraft on the ground, empty aircraft seats and people standing around at airports.
Except,of course, that shouldn’t be the “story” that everyone is following at all. Since the current whereabouts of the man who told us all about what secret government agencies REALLY do is unknown (currently, on Twitter, he is said to be in Iceland, in Russia, in Hong Kong, in Ecuador and, in one extreme case, not actually to have ever been in Hong Kong at all!) and whereas the story of his flight and the reactions of the US government and the Russians, etc. is great fun, it shouldn’t really be what all the respectable journalists are covering.
Instead, surely, the focus should be on the enormous amount of data that GCHQ and the NSA have been (and almost certainly, still are) collecting on innocent people.
Being in Italy I can assure you that many of the ways that the Fascists collected and reviewed data on the common person are still in place, even if a little more relaxed now (I’m sure if I’m wrong on this, I will be corrected). The Fascists wanted to know everything about everybody because knowledge is power and, more importantly, the power to control (the masses).
WWII was all about defeating Fascists and the Fascist idea.
It seems that the whole thing was a waste of time because what we have now is the collecting of all this data and the controlling of the people.
And, yet, the main focus is on one man. Not even a very powerful man (since he’s given away the secrets).
Instead of very hard questions being asked of Obama and Cameron – the very hard questions are being asked of a man who is somewhere that only a few know. All the while, the destruction of his credibility goes unchecked and unquestioned.
To be honest, it’s not really important WHY he went to work for a particular company nor HOW he was able to take the information nor, even, WHERE he is.
What IS important is the WHAT he has exposed.
I would like for it to be stopped, this collecting of data. I would like the real freedom that was promised by the fighters of WWII. I don’t vote any more (because what’s the point) – but I say now that should anyone come up with a plan for ridding us of these Fascist principles of governing, I would go back out there and vote.