The vigilant state

By Yadira Escobar

From her blog Yadiraescobar.com

MIAMI – I don’t want to sound like an anarchist. I acknowledge that every State needs a minimum of vigilance over its citizens to protect itself from its foreign and domestic enemies.

Here comes the big BUT.

But if they inspect our personal mail, our tastes, sniff around our acquaintances on the social networks, or listen closely to our most intimate phone calls, we have a real problem.

It seems to me that this is a poisonous custom that could destroy everything we know as civil liberties.

Many of the humiliations that passengers experience at airport controls could be avoided without endangering the national security. I do NOT believe that a terrorist would write anything relevant on Twitter or G-mail, but it seems that there is a flourishing industry that sells all kinds of devices and espionage and surveillance services to the Western democracies that today could change the nature of the capitalist system, dragging it irredeemably toward a modern fascism with new names and excuses.

With the bursting of so many speculative bubbles, the rich are left to invest on basic foods like rice and the surveillance industry. We are watched by cameras of all types and nobody should feel that he’s safe in the Internet. I don’t want to be pessimistic, but there is too much money concentrated in too few hands, and that’s the exclusive little group that generates all kinds of anti-people policies.

President Barack Obama already spoke about the recent scandal involving the “Prism” program, exposed by the confessions of young Edward Snowden of the NSA (National Security Agency) and the CIA. Snowden is in Hong Kong, asking for political asylum and does not seem to be repentant, despite the possibility of facing life imprisonment if he’s captured by U.S. authorities.

Because of the extradition treaty between Hong Kong and the U.S., he has been advised to not remain long in that city.

Julian Assange wasted no time congratulating Snowden for his act and designating him as a “hero.”

Obama tried to calm the more uneasy public by saying that all these programs of extreme surveillance are authorized by Congress and remain under the supervision of a mysterious secret court.

Personally, I don’t feel at all relieved after hearing that. I wonder why.